nd you something better to do, I'll take you on
here at once, and do the best I can for you, as far as teaching you to
be a gardener goes."

"O, thank you, sir!" I cried.

"Wait a bit," he said quietly, "wait a bit. There I'm going to be very
busy; I've got a cart to load. So now suppose you be off."

I shook hands with him and walked away surprised and pleased, but at the
same time disappointed, and as I neared the end of the big loft I heard
two or three more baskets come rattling down.

CHAPTER SIX.

I DECIDE AND GO TO WORK.

I felt that I ought to write to my uncles and cousins, and I consulted
Mrs Beeton about it.

Mrs Beeton put her head on one side and tried how far she could get her
arm down the black worsted stocking she was darning, looking at me
meditatively the while.

"Well, do you know," she said, "if I were you, my dear, I would write;
for it do seem strange to leave you here, as I may say, all alone."

"Then I will write," I said. "I want to know what I am going to be."

"Oh! I should be a soldier, like your dear pa was, if I were you," she
said; "and I'd go into a regiment where they wore blue and silver-blue
and silver always looks so well."

"I don't want to be a soldier," I said rather sadly, for my fancy did at
one time go strongly in that direction; but it did not seem so very long
since the news came that my poor father had been killed in a skirmish
with the Indians; and I remembered how my poor mother had thrown her
arms round my neck and sobbed, and made me promise that I would never
think of being a soldier. And then it seemed as if after that news she
had gradually drooped and faded, just as a flower might upon its stalk,
till two years had gone by, and then all happened as I have related to
you, and I was left pretty well alone in the world.

"I'm sorry you don't want to be a soldier," said Mrs Beeton, looking at
me through her glasses, with her head a little more on one side. "If I
had been a young gentleman I should have been a horse-soldier. I
wouldn't be a sailor if I was you, sir."

"Why not?" I said.

"Because they do smell so of tar, and they're so rough and boisterous."

"I think I shall be a gardener," I said.

"A what?"

"A gardener."

"My dear boy!" she cried in horror, "whatever put that in your head?
Why, you couldn't be anything worse. There!--I do declare you startled
me so I've stuck the needle right into my finger, and it bleeds!"

We ha