up by the roots
while she was picking their leaves. They would do very well to plant
in the shrubbery, where the sun could never manage to pierce the screen
of overhanging boughs even at mid-day. All gardeners know that a hot
sun has a very disastrous effect on newly-moved plants, especially if
their roots are mostly torn off.

"I'll hold the watering-pot while you jump over the geranium-bed," said
Betty. "You know we broke two last week, and Papa said if he caught--"

"Nonsense! It's only you girls with your skirts who break things,"
interrupted John, clutching his watering-pot tighter than ever, for he
strongly suspected his sister of intending to wile it away from him.
He jumped, the watering-pot was heavy, and the weight all on one side.
Consequently he fell, and his fall was unusually disastrous, being
marked by more than the ordinary number of crushed geraniums and
scattered earth. Of course the water was all upset, principally into
his boots: and Betty threw away her nasturtiums in disgust, for it was
quite useless to plant them dry, and they had both been warned off the
pump and the tap that very morning. There might easily have been some
rather bitter reproaches at this point, but fortunately Madge was sent
out to summon them to dinner.

"I want you to do something for me this afternoon," she said to Betty
and John as they returned to the house. "Miss Thompson is going to
take me to Churchbury shopping, and I think Lewis will be expecting me
at the Eagle's Nest. I said something about it yesterday before I knew
that I was going shopping."

"But why can't John and I go and talk to him?" answered Betty. "We
aren't all going shopping."

"You don't think he will care to talk to little things like you?"
laughed Madge. "Why, he is two years older than me even; but, of
course, that isn't much. I only want you to tell him why I haven't
come, and that we shall have the usual afternoon holiday on Saturday.
Then you can come straight back, for I am sure he won't stop with you."

Since the day that Jack jumped over the wall Lewis had talked to the
children several times, standing close under the tree, and keeping an
anxious eye in the direction of Mrs. Howard's house all the while. Of
course he could not climb up to play with them since the rope-ladder so
mysteriously disappeared. There had been no explanation of that
strange disappearance. At first the children feared that Barton had
found their hidin