d hurt that I should have been talked of so, and
remained silent.

"The missus said you might be dirty and awkward in the house. This cane
will be loaded next year if we get it well ripened this year, Grant.
That's why I'm tying it in here close to the glass, where it'll get
plenty of sun and air."

"What! will that bear grapes next year, sir?" I said, for I felt
obliged to say something.

"Yes; and when the leaves are off you shall cut this one right out down
at the bottom yonder."

He tapped a beautiful branch or cane from the main stem, which was
bearing about a dozen fine bunches of grapes, and it seemed a pity; but
of course he knew best, and he began cutting and snapping out shoots and
big leaves between the new green cane and the glass.

"She was afraid you'd be a nuisance to me, and said you'd be playing
with tops, and throwing stones, and breaking the glass. I told her that
Brother Ezra wouldn't send me such a boy as that; but she only shook her
head. `I know what boys are,' she said. `Look at her ladyship's two.'
But I said that you wouldn't be like them, and you won't, will you?"

I laughed, for it seemed such a comical idea for me to be behaving as
Mrs Solomon had supposed.

"What are you laughing at?" he said, looking down at me.

"I was thinking about what Mrs Brownsmith said," I replied.

"Oh yes! To be sure," he continued. "You'll like her. She's a very
nice woman. A very good woman. I've known her thirty years."

"Have you had any children, sir?" I said.

"No," he replied, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye; "and yet I've
always been looking after nurseries--all my life."

In about an hour he finished his morning work in the vinery, and I went
out with him in the garden, where he left me to tidy up a great bed of
geraniums with a basket and a pair of scissors.

"I've got to see to the men now," he said. "By-and-by we'll go and have
a turn at the cucumbers."

The bed I was employed upon was right away from the house in a sort of
nook where the lawn ran up amongst some great Portugal laurels. It was
a mass of green and scarlet, surrounded by shortly cropped grass, and I
was very busy in the hot sunshine, enjoying my task, and now and then
watching the thrushes that kept hopping out on to the lawn and then back
under the shelter of the evergreens, when I suddenly saw a shadow, and,
turning sharply, found that my friend of the peach-house had come softly
up over the grass