ransacking the greenhouses at the Hall.
When I told the head gardener that I wanted
some flowers to give to a bride, he took quite
an interest in their selection, and said I was to
gather what I chose. I galloped the new mare
nearly all the way into Willborough. And now
you must pay me for my posy, Madame de
Beauguet."

To see the start the little woman gave when
he called her by her new name! But she
put her hands in his, and stood on tiptoe to be
kissed, saying, " God bless you, my dear boy.
I shall always like you, and keep you in my
thoughts side by side with our beloved friends
at the Gable House. You know, I cannot
express a higher regard than that, for any one."

More kisses and embraces, confused farewells,
promises to write, thanks, tears, blessings, and
our dear old friend was gone. The last glimpse
I had of her, showed me her small form being
lifted into the fly, by my uncle's strong arms.
Good true friend! As large of heart as she
was tiny of stature. What a giantess would
Miss Wokenham have been, if her soul and body
had borne proportion to one another!

For some days after the marriage, the whole
household seemed unsettled; and Anna and I
wandered about from the house to the gardens,
and from the gardens to the orchard, and about
and about, in a most desultory manner.

Old Stock had been forced so far to yield to
age and rheumatism, as to accept the assistance
of a permanent under-gardener, who was to
receive his directions, and spare him the hardest
part of the out-door work. It was a sore trial
to him, until he discovered a mine of comfort
in the alleged and assumed total incapacity of
his assistant. This inexhaustible theme for
grumbling seemed to afford him more enjoyment
than anything except his pipe. " Good morning,
Stock," said I to him, a few days after Miss
Wokenham's wedding. " What sort of a spring
are we likely to have? And how are things
looking with you here?" He was standing in
the kitchen garden—leaning on a great brown
knotted stick, scarcely browner or more knotted
than his hands—inspecting the labours of his
subordinate, who was digging up a great potato-
bed. It was one of Stock's rheumatic mornings,
and he was unable to handle a spade himself.

"Spring, Miss Margrit," growled the old man.
"The spring 'll be all right, to be sure. The
Lord 'll look after that. But as to how things
is looking here, why howiver is things like to
look, when the master 'livers 'em over to the
marcy of Bill Green? In course I knows my
dooty:" Stock was always comfortably satisfied
on that point: " my dooty's wrote out plain. It
may be hard on a man as has sarved the master
forty year, fur to see the soil turned up in
that there fashion, like stirring furmety wi' a
ladle; but if the master ordains as Bill Green
is to spoon the herth instead of spading it,
why spooned the herth must be."

"Don't be hard on Green, Stock," said I;
"he'll improve, no doubt, with all the pains
you will take to teach him."

"Pains! Ah, great pains an' little gains.
Jist look at him now, Miss Margrit, a-standin'
gapin' like a stuck pig, instead of arnin' his
day's wage. Didn't ye niver see a young lady
afore, ye great gaby?"

"I've see'd lots on 'em," returned Bill Green:
a blue-eyed stolid young fellow, upon whom
Stock's sarcasm and scolding appeared equally
powerless to produce any impression.

"0, ye have, have ye? Then what are you
standin' starin' at? Why don't ye try to do
summut for your daily bread, thof it be but
spoonin'?"

"I've digged this here bed, an' I dunno what's
to do next," said Green.

Stock turned to me triumphantly.

"Ye see, ye see, Miss Margrit! That's the
way! He ain't got no more notion of his
dooties nor a babby. It's a marciful Providence
as I'm able to git about to look after him.
Come here along wi' me, Bill Green, and I'll
pint out what mischief you and your spoon is
to do next. Bring your spoon along with you.
Not as the Lord wills that the article should
ever be missing where you are!" And the old
man hobbled away to another part of his
domains, followed by Bill Green, who confidentially
bestowed a broad grin on me as he departed.

Horace greatly relished Stock's eccentricities,
and I got into the habit of treasuring up
his odd sayings and doings, in order to repeat
them to Horace. Horace was really witty. I
have never known a more amusing companion
than he could be when once he knew you well
enough to cast off his shyness. He sometimes
had fits of wild spirits that kept Uncle Gough
in roars of laughter. But then, too, he was
very easily moved to sympathy with anything
sad. The tears would spring to his eyes in a
moment at hearing a plaintive tune or apathetic
story. He rarely could refuse to give to a
beggar, and was as tender as a woman with
aged people and little children. Uncle Gough
used to say that Horace had one great fault;
he could not say, No. " Wants ballast a bit,
does the laddie," said uncle. " But, Lord help
us. We all grow hard soon enough; and an
old heart in a young bosom is worse than an
old head upon young shoulders."

CHAPTER VII.

GRADUALLY I grew to join the thought of
Horace with every incident in my life. When
the lilies of the valley first peeped up under
the shady side of the moss-grown orchard
wall, I said to myself: " How Horace will like
to see them!"—for he loved flowers dearly.
When old Bran, the watch-dog, crawled feebly
into the parlour, one day for the first and last
time in his life, and died with his faithful
head on my uncle's feet, I thought, amidst
my tears: " Horace will grieve for Bran."
If I wore a brighter ribbon than usual, or
any new piece of girlish finery, I secretly
wondered, " How will Horace like it?" I suppose
this was " falling in love," but I did not know
it. It was rather growing into love, gradually