the grafts which had been budded in the
spring had taken. "I only wish," the gardener answered, "my good master
may come to enjoy them. If he were here this autumn, he would see what
beautiful sorts there are in the old castle garden, which the late lord,
his honored father, put there. I think the fruit-gardeners there are now
don't succeed as well as the Carthusians used to do. We find many fine
names in the catalogue, and then we bud from them, and bring up the
shoots, and, at last, when they come to bear, it is not worth while to
have such trees standing in our garden."

Over and over again, whenever the faithful old servant saw Ottilie, he
asked when his master might be expected home; and when Ottilie had
nothing to tell him, he would look vexed, and let her see in his manner
that he thought she did not care to tell him: the sense of uncertainty
which was thus forced upon her became painful beyond measure, and yet
she could never be absent from these beds and borders. What she and
Edward had sown and planted together were now in full flower, requiring
no further care from her, except that Nanny should be at hand with the
watering-pot; and who shall say with what sensations she watched the
later flowers, which were just beginning to show, and which were to be
in the bloom of their beauty on Edward's birthday, the holiday to which
she had looked forward with such eagerness, when these flowers were to
have expressed her affection and her gratitude to him! But the hopes
which she had formed of that festival were dead now, and doubt and
anxiety never ceased to haunt the soul of the poor girl.

Into real open, hearty understanding with Charlotte, there was no more a
chance of her being able to return; for indeed, the position of these
two ladies was very different. If things could remain in their old
state--if it were possible that they could return again into the smooth,
even way of calm, ordered life, Charlotte gained everything; she gained
happiness for the present, and a happy future opened before her. On the
other hand, for Ottilie all was lost--one may say, all; for she had
first found in Edward what life and happiness meant; and, in her present
position, she felt an infinite and dreary chasm of which before she
could have formed no conception. A heart which seeks, feels well that it
wants something; a heart which has lost, feels that something is
gone--its yearning and its longing change into uneasy impatience--an