alk with us, my dears," said Mrs Leslie, "I want to show
your mamma the pretty garden you have cultivated so nicely, Fanny."

Fanny would thankfully have prevented them from seeing her garden, for
she knew that the way Norman had treated it would be discovered. Still
she could not think how to avoid going, and she could only hope that the
gardener had put it to rights, as he had promised to do.

Mrs Leslie, wishing to gain her grandson's confidence, called to him,
and taking his hand, led him on talking to him kindly; Fanny and her
mamma followed at a little distance.

Mrs Vallery interested Fanny by giving her accounts of India, but she
was so anxious about her garden and the vexation her granny would feel
at seeing it destroyed, that she could not listen as attentively as she
otherwise would have done. She saw that Norman was walking on very
unwillingly, and from time to time making an effort to escape, but his
grandmamma had no intention of letting him go.

At length Mrs Leslie and Norman reached Fanny's garden.

"Why, my dear, what changes you have made!" she exclaimed, "and I see
you have dug up nearly half of it."

Fanny ran forward. The gardener had begun to set it to rights, but had
evidently been prevented from finishing the work. The two spades were
stuck in the ground where Fanny and Norman had left them.

Fanny said nothing, she hoped that her brother would manfully confess
what he had done, that she might then be better able to plead for him.
Instead of doing so he snatched his hand away from that of his
grandmamma and ran off along the walk. Fanny had then most reluctantly
to confess that her brother had dug up her garden.

"Do not be angry with him, granny," she said, "he is very very young,
and he thought I had ill-treated him by not making his garden as nice as
mine was. He did not understand that I fancied he would like to arrange
it himself, but John has promised to put it in order, and I hope
to-morrow that mine will be as nice as ever, and that Norman's will be
like it, so pray say no more to him about it."

"I will do as you wish, Fanny," answered Mrs Leslie, "but I cannot
allow your brother, young as he is, to behave in the same way again."

Mrs Vallery was greatly grieved at discovering what Norman had done, at
the same time she was much pleased to hear the way Fanny pleaded for her
young brother, and she could not resist stooping down and kissing her
again and again while the tea