ving a will of his own, and a eye of his own, and being one
that would be minded, while he never tired of hearing the fine bright
boy "sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming, love, and When he
who adores thee has left but the name, and that: still," said Boots, "he
kept the command over the child, and the child _was_ a child, and
it's very much to be wished more of 'em was." At the particular
period referred to in this portion of his narrative, Boots informed us
pleasantly, that he came to know all about it by reason of his being in
his then capacity as Mr. Wahners' under-gardener, always about in the
summer time, near the windows, on the lawn "a-mowing and sweeping, and
weeding and pruning, and this and that"--with his eyes and ears open,
of course, we may presume, in a manner befitting his intelligence.

Perhaps, there was after all nothing better in the delivery of the whole
of this Reading, than the utterance of the two words italicised below
in the first dialogue, reported by Boots as having taken place between
himself and Master Harry Walmers, junior, when "that mite," as Boots
calls him, stops one day, along with the fine young woman of seven
already mentioned, where Boots (then under-gardener, remember) was
hoeing weeds in the gravel:--

"'Cobbs,' he says, 'I like _you._' 'Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it.'
'Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?' 'Don't know,
Master Harry, I'm sure.' 'Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.' 'Indeed, sir?
That's very gratifying.' 'Gratifying, Cobbs? It is better than millions
of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah?' '_Certainly_, sir.'"

Confirmed naturally enough in his good opinion of Cobbs by this thorough
community of sentiment, Master Harry, who has been given to understand
from the latter that he is going to leave, and, further than that, on
inquiring, that he wouldn't object to another situation "if it was
a good 'un," observes, while tucking that other mite in her little
sky-blue mantle under his arm, "Then, Cobbs, you shall be our head
gardener when we are married." Boots, thereupon, in the person of the
Reader, went on to describe how "the babies with their long bright
curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread,
rambled about the garden deep in love," sometimes here, sometimes there,
always under his own sympathetic and admiring observation, until one
day, down by the pond, he heard Master Harry say, "Adorable No