e bird, cocking his yellow eye at Peggy. "_Me
gustan todas en general!_"

"Well, I never!" said Peggy. "I think he's a witch, Margaret."

They went through a low door cut in the green wall, and found themselves
in the great shady garden, a place of wonder and mystery. The trees and
plants had been growing for two hundred years, ever since James Montfort
had left the court of Charles II. in disgust, and come out to build his
home and make his garden in the new country, where freedom waited for
her children.

The great oaks and elms and chestnuts were green with moss and hoary
with lichens, but the flower-beds lay out in broad sunshine, and here
were no signs of age, only of careful tending and renewal. Margaret was
enchanted with the flowers, for her home had been in a town, and she
knew little of country joys. Peggy glanced carelessly at the geraniums
and heliotropes, and told Margaret that she should see a field of
poppies in bloom.

They came across the gardener, who straightened himself at sight of
them, and greeted them with grave politeness. He was a tall, strongly
made man, with, grizzled hair and bright, dark eyes.

"May we pick a few flowers?" asked Margaret in her pleasant way.

"Surely, miss; any, and all you like, except these beds of young slips
here, which I am nursing carefully. I hope you will be often in the
garden, young ladies!" and he saluted again, in military fashion, as the
girls walked away.

"What a remarkable-looking man!" said Margaret. "I wonder if I can have
seen him anywhere. There is something about his face--"

"Oh, there is the swing!" cried Peggy. "Come along, Margaret; I'll race
you to that big chestnut-tree!" and away flew the two girls over the
smooth green turf.

CHAPTER IV.

CONFIDENCE.

"What are you doing, _tres chere_?" asked Rita, suddenly appearing at
Margaret's door. "How is it you pass your time so cheerfully? how to
live, in this deplorable solitude? You see me fading away, positively a
shadow, in this hideous solitude!"

Margaret looked up cheerfully from her work.

"Come in, daughter of despair!" she said. And Rita came in and flung
herself on the sofa with a tragic air.

"You are doing--what?" she demanded.

"I have rather a hopeless task, I fear," said Margaret. "Peggy's hat!
She dropped it into the pond yesterday, and I am trying to smarten it up
a little, poor thing! What do you advise, Rita? I am sure you have
clever fingers, you embroider