ny one assured her that she could do no good at all. She even
began upon mother's garden before the snow was clean gone from it, and
sowed a beautiful row of peas, every one of which the mice ate.

But though it was very pretty to watch her working for her very life,
as if the maintenance of the household hung upon her labours, yet I was
grieved for many reasons, and so was mother also. In the first place,
she was too fair and dainty for this rough, rude work; and though it
made her cheeks so bright, it surely must be bad for her to get her
little feet so wet. Moreover, we could not bear the idea that she should
labour for her keep; and again (which was the worst of all things)
mother's garden lay exposed to a dark deceitful coppice, where a man
might lurk and watch all the fair gardener's doings. It was true that
none could get at her thence, while the brook which ran between poured
so great a torrent. Still the distance was but little for a gun to
carry, if any one could be brutal enough to point a gun at Lorna. I
thought that none could be found to do it; but mother, having more
experience, was not so certain of mankind.

Now in spite of the floods, and the sloughs being out, and the state of
the roads most perilous, Squire Faggus came at last, riding his famous
strawberry mare. There was a great ado between him and Annie, as you
may well suppose, after some four months of parting. And so we left them
alone awhile, to coddle over their raptures. But when they were tired of
that, or at least had time enough to do so, mother and I went in to know
what news Tom had brought with him. Though he did not seem to want us
yet, he made himself agreeable; and so we sent Annie to cook the dinner
while her sweetheart should tell us everything.

Tom Faggus had very good news to tell, and he told it with such force of
expression as made us laugh very heartily. He had taken up his purchase
from old Sir Roger Bassett of a nice bit of land, to the south of the
moors, and in the parish of Molland. When the lawyers knew thoroughly
who he was, and how he had made his money, they behaved uncommonly well
to him, and showed great sympathy with his pursuits. He put them up to a
thing or two; and they poked him in the ribs, and laughed, and said that
he was quite a boy; but of the right sort, none the less. And so they
made old Squire Bassett pay the bill for both sides; and all he got for
three hundred acres was a hundred and twenty pounds;