rden in the county!" Even allowing for the prejudices of
possession, it was impossible to bestow such a title upon Yew Hedge in
its present unkempt condition. The house had been unlet for two years,
during which time the grass had grown coarse and rank, wallflowers and
forget-me-nots were dying a lingering death in the borders, and nothing
was coming on to take their place. It was not the first time that Peggy
had given her mind to this subject, but so far she had not succeeded in
finding a solution of the difficulty, nor had the suggestion of the
village gardener met with her approval.

"It's bedding-out as you want," he had explained. "You must bed out.
That's the tastiest thing for those 'ere round beds, and the tidiest
too. They last well on into the autumn, if it comes in no sharp frosts.
There's nothing like them for lasting!"

"Like _what_? Do you mean geraniums?"

"Ay, geraniums for sure, and calcies, and lobelias, and a nice little
hedge of pyrethrum. Can't do better than that, can yer? Geraniums in
the centre,"--he drew a circle on the ground with the end of his stick,
and prodded little holes here and there to illustrate his plan. "A nice
patch of red, then comes yellar, then the blue, then the green. In
circles or in rows, according as you please."

"I seem to have seen it somewhere! I have certainly seen it," mused
Peggy solemnly, so solemnly, that the poor man took her words in good
faith, and looked at her with wondering pity.

"I should say you 'ad! You couldn't travel far without seein' of 'em in
the summer time. There's nuthin' else to see in a manner of speaking,
for they all 'as 'em. 'Igh and low, gentle and simple."

"Then I won't!" quoth Peggy unexpectedly. "Henceforth, Bevan, when
sightseers come to the neighbourhood, send them up to Yew Hedge to
inspect the one garden in England which does not go in for bedding-out!
If I want fireworks, I'll have them in gunpowder on the fifth of
November, but not in flowers if I know it! It's an insult to Nature to
rule a garden in lines and transform a bed into a mathematical figure!"

The old gardener looked at her more in sorrow than in anger, and shook
his head dejectedly as he went back to his work. He had the gravest
doubts about the sanity of a young lady who objected to "bedding-out;"
but if Peggy gained no approval from him for her new-fangled notions,
she reaped her reward in Rob's unaffected delight, when the conversation
was d