"Your rent, to be sure, is much lower than
in the old place," observed Abby.

"Why, we must not build upon that,"
replied the lather; " rent is rising here, and
will rise. My landlord was considerate in
lowering mine to 3l. per acre, when he saw
how impossible it was to make it answer;
and he says he shall not ask more yet, on
account of the labour I laid out at the time of
the drainage. But when I have partly repaid
myself, the rent will rise to 5l.; and, in fact,
I have made my calculations, in regard to
Harry's coming, at a higher rent than that."

"Higher than that?"

"Yes: I should not be surprised if I found
myself paying, as market-gardeners near
London do, ten pounds per acre, before I die."

"Or rather, to let the ground to me, for
that, father," said Allan, " when it is your
own property, and you are tired of work, and
disposed to turn it over to me. I will pay
you ten pounds per acre then, and let you
have all the cabbages you can eat, besides.
It is capital land, and that is the truth.
Come—shall that be a bargain?"

Woodruffe smiled, and said he owed a duty
to Allan. He did not like to see him so hard
worked as to be unable to take due care of his
own corner of the garden;—unable to enter
fairly into the competition for the prizes
at the Horticultural Show in the summer.
Becky now, too, ought to be spared from all
but occasional help in the garden. Above
all, the ground was now in such an improving
state that it would be waste not to bestow due
labour upon it. Put in the spade where you
would, the soil was loose and well-aired as
needs be: the manure penetrated it thoroughly;
the frost and heat pulverised, instead of binding
it; and the crops were succeeding each
other so fast, that the year would be a very
profitable one.

"Where will Harry live, if he comes?"
asked Abby.

"We must get another cottage added to the
new row. Easily done! Cottages so healthy
as these new ones pay well. Good rents are
offered for them,—to save doctors' bills and
loss of time from sickness;—and, when once
a system of house-drainage is set agoing, it
costs scarcely more, in adding a cottage to a
group, to make it all right, than to run it up
upon solid clay as used to be the way here.
Well, I have good mind to write to Harry
to-day. What do you think,—all of you?"

Fortified by the opinion of all his children,
Mr. Woodruffe wrote to Harry. Meantime,
Allan and Becky went to cut the vegetables
that were for sale that day; and Moss delighted
himself in running after and catching the pony
in the meadow below. The pony was not very
easily caught, for it was full of spirit. Instead
of the woolly insipid grass that it used to crop,
and which seemed to give it only fever and no
nourishment, it now fed on sweet fresh grass,
which had no sour stagnant water soaking its
roots. The pony was so full of play this morning
that Moss could not get hold of it. Though
much stronger than a year ago, he was not
yet anything like so robust as a boy of his age
should be; and he was growing heated, and
perhaps a little angry, as the pony gallopped
off towards some distant trees, when boy
started up behind a bush, caught the halter,
brought the pony round with a twitch, and led
him to Moss, Moss fancied he had seen the
boy before, and then his white teeth reminded
Moss of one thing after another.

"I came for some marsh plants," said the
boy. " You and I got plenty once, somewhere
hereabouts: but I cannot find them now.''

"You will not find any now. We have no
marsh now."

The stranger said he dared not go back
without them: mother wanted them badly.
She would not believe him if he said he could
not find any. There were plenty about two
miles off, along the railway, among the clay-
pits, he was told; but none nearer. The boy
wanted to know where the clay-pits hereabouts
were. He could not find one of them.

"I will show you one of them," said Moss;
"the one where you and I used to hunt rats."
And, leading the pony, he showed his old
gipsy playfellow all the improvements, beginning
with the great ditch,—now invisible from
being covered in. While it was open, he said,
it used to get choked, and the sides were
plastered after rain, and soon became grass-
grown, so that it was found worth while to
cover it in; and now it would want little
looking to for years to come. As for the
clay-pit, where the rats used to pop in and
out,—it was now a manure-pit, covered in.
There was a drain into it from the pony's
stable and from the pig-styes; and it was
near enough to the garden to receive the
refuse and sweepings, A heavy lid, with a
ring in the middle, covered the pit, so that
nobody could fall in, in the dark, and no smell
could get out. Moss begged the boy to come
a little further, and he would show him his
own flower-bed; and when the boy was there,
he was shown everything else: what a cart-
load of vegetables lay cut for sale; and what
an arbour had been made of the pent-house
under which Moss used to take shelter, when
he could do nothing better than keep off the
birds; and how fine the ducks were,—the five
ducks that were so serviceable in eating off the
slugs; and what a comfortable nest had been
made for them to lay their eggs in, beside the
water-tank in the corner; and what a variety
of scarecrows the family had invented,—each
having one, to try which would frighten the
sparrows most. While Moss was telling how
difficult it was to deal with the sparrows,
because they could not be frightened for more
than three days by any kind of scarecrow, he
heard Allan calling him, in a tone of vexation,
at being kept waiting so long. In an instant
the stranger boy was off,— leaping the gate,
and flying along the meadow till he was hidden
behind a hedge.