ever has time," she said; "and our first man was a
tipsifier, and the last was a rogue. He sold off quantities of the
best young plants, we found, just before they came to show for
anything."

"Our man has been with us for eight years," said Rodney Sherrett. "I
dare say he could recommend some one to you, if you liked; and he
wouldn't send anybody that wasn't right. Shall I ask him?"

Mrs. Argenter would be delighted if he would; and then Mr. Sherrett
must come into the conservatory, where a few ragged palm ferns,
their great leaves browning and crumbling at the edges,--some
daphnes struggling into green tips, having lost their last growth of
leaf and dropped all their flower buds, and several calmly enduring
orange and lemon trees, gave all the suggestion of foliage that the
place afforded, and served, much like the painter's inscription at
the bottom of his canvas merely to signify by the scant glimpse
through the drawing-room draperies,--"This is a conservatory."

Mrs. Argenter asked Rodney something about the best arrangement for
the open beds, and wanted to know what would be surest to do well
for the rockery, and whether it was in a good part of the
house,--sufficiently shaded? Meanwhile, Amy and Sylvie were turning
over music, and when they all gathered together again the call had
extended to a two hours' visit.

"It is really unpardonable," Amy Sherrett was saying, and picking up
the pretty little hat which she had thrown down upon a chair,--"it
had been so warm to wear anything a minute that one need not." And
then Mrs. Argenter said so easily and of course, that they
"certainly would not think of going now, when it would soon be
really pleasant for a twilight drive; tea would be ready early, for
she and Sylvie were alone, and all they had cared for to-day had
been a cold lunch at one. They would have it on the north veranda;"
and she touched a bell to give the order.

Perhaps Amy Sherrett would hardly have consented, but that Rodney
gave her a look, comical in its appeal, over Sylvie's shoulder, as
she stood showing him a great scarlet Euphorbia in a portfolio of
water-colors, and said with a beseeching significance,--

"Consider Red Squirrel, Amy. He really did have a pretty hard pull;
and what with the heat and the flies, I dare say he would take it
with more equanimity after sundown,--since Mrs. Argenter is so very
kind."

And so they stayed; and Mrs. Argenter laid another little brick in
her "Hou