was vexed and displeased. No radishes,
onions, early salads, or rhubarb were ready:
and it would be sometime yet before they
were.

"I am sure I have done everything I could,"
said Woodruffe to Fleming, as they both lent
a hand to put the pony into the cart. "Nobody
can say that I have not made drains enough,
or that they are not deep enough; yet the
frost has taken such a hold that one would
think we were living in the north of Scotland,
instead of in Staffordshire."

"It has not been a severe season either,"
observed Fleming.

"There's the vexation," replied Woodruffe.
"If it had been a season which set us at
defiance, and made all sufferers alike, one
must just submit to a loss, and go on again,
like one's neighbours. But, you see, I am cut
out, as my agent says, from the market.
Everybody else has spring vegetables there,
as usual. It is no use telling him that I
never failed before. But I know what it is.
It is yonder great ditch that does the mischief."

"Why, we have nothing to do with that."

"That is the very reason. If it was mine
or yours, do you think I should not have taken
it in hand long ago? All my draining goes
for little while that shallow ditch keeps my
ground a continual sop. It is all uneven along
the bottom;—not the same depth for three
feet together anywhere, and not deep enough
by two feet in any part. So there it is, choked
up and putrid; and, after an hour or two of
rain, my garden gets such a soaking, that the
next frost is destruction."

"I will speak about it again," said Fleming.
"We must have it set right before next
winter."

"I think we have seen enough of the uselessness
of speaking," replied Woodruffe, gloomily.
"If we tease the gentry any more, they may
punish you for it. I would show them my
mind by being off, throwing up my bargain
at all costs, if I had not put so much into the
ground that I have nothing left to move away
with."

"Don't be afraid for me," said Fleming,
cheerfully. "It was chiefly my doing that
you came here, and I must try my utmost to
obtain fair conditions for you. We must
remember that the benefit of your outlay has
all to come."

"Yes; I can't say we have got much of it
yet."

"By next winter," continued Fleming, "your
privet hedges and screens will have grown up
into some use against the frost; and your own
drainage——. Come, come, Allan, my boy!
be off! It is getting late."

Allan seemed to be idling, re-arranging his
bunches of small radishes, and little bundles
of rhubarb, in their clean baskets, and
improving the stick with which he was to drive:
but he pleaded that he was waiting for Moss,
and for the parcel which his mother was
getting ready for Becky.

"Ah! my poor little girl!" said Woodruffe.
"Give my love to her, and tell her it will be a
happy day when we can send for her to come
home again. Be sure you observe particularly,
to tell us, how she looks; and, mind, if she
fancies anything in the cart,— any radishes, or
whatever else, because it comes out of our
garden, be sure you give it her. I wish I was
going myself with the cart, for the sake of
seeing Becky; but I must go to work. Here
have I been all the while, waiting to see you
off. Ah! here they come! you may always
have notice now of who is coming by that
child's crying."

"O, father! not always!" exclaimed Allan.

"Far too often, I'm sure. I never knew a
child grow so fractious. I am saying, my
dear," to his wife, who now appeared with her
parcel, and Moss in his best hat, "that boy is
the most fractious child we ever had: and he,
is getting too old for that to begin now. How
can you spoil him so?"

"I am not aware," said Mrs. Woodruffe, her
eyes filling with tears, "that I treat him
differently from the rest: but the child is not
well. His chilblains tease him terribly; and
I wish there may be nothing worse."

"Warm weather will soon cure the
chilblains, and then I hope we shall see an end
of the fretting.—Now, leave off crying this
minute, Moss, or you don't go. You don't
see me cry with my rheumatism, and that is
worse than chilblains, I can tell you."

Moss tried to stifle his sobs, while his
mother put more straw into the cart tor him,
and cautioned Allan to be careful of him, for
it really seemed as if the child was tender all
over. Allan seemed to succeed best as
comforter. He gave Moss the stick to wield, and
showed him how to make believe to whip the
pony, so that before they turned the corner,
Moss was wholly engrossed with what he
called driving.

"Yes, yes," said Woodruffe, as he turned
away, to go to his garden, "Allan is the one
to manage him. He can take as good care of
him as any woman, without spoiling him."

Mrs. Woodruffe submitted to this in silence;
but with the feeling that she did not deserve it.

Becky had had no notice of this visit from
her brothers: but no such visit could take her
by surprise; for she was thinking of her
family all day long, every day, and fancying
she should see them, whichever way she
turned. It was not her natural destination
to be a servant in a farm-house: she had
never expected it,—never been prepared for
it. She was as willing to work as any girl
could be; and her help in the gardening was
beyond what most women are capable of: but
it was a bitter thing to her to go among
strangers, and toil for them, when she knew
that she was wanted at home by father and
mother, and brothers, and just at present, by
her sister too; for Mrs. Fleming's confinement
was to happen this spring. The reason why
Becky was not at home while so much wanted