now! Let's
return these articles--see, it's Cadbury's pillow and Trevelyan's coat,
so neither of them set the trap--and let's agree to forgive and forget
for once. Won't you?"

Jack could be very gentle and persuasive, and Hannah's heart was not
proof against his pleading.

"Well, sir, just this once, since you put it like that, and hask so
particular."

"There's an angel! I knew you would. You come to me, Hannah, when you're
in any fix, and see if I don't repay you for this. Hullo! here's Frere
and his fiddle. I'd better scuttle."

"Yes, Brady, I think you had better," observed Frere. "I heard Mr. West
asking for you."

"Ugh! I never like being asked for," remarked Jack, and straightway
vanished.

"So peace isn't signed yet," he said to himself. "The campaign has only
changed its character, for secret and irregular warfare. I don't seem to
have accomplished much so far."

Jack went home that Saturday feeling rather discouraged. He little knew
what his accidental interview with Hannah, the housemaid, would result
in.

He was flinging his own and Trevelyan's muddy boots into the big basket
which stood in the scullery, on Monday evening, when a low voice close
at hand startled him.

"Please, Master Brady, if you have a minute to spare, I should like to
speak to you."

Jack turned round in surprise, to face his friend of Saturday, the
housemaid.

"Why, certainly. Fire away! I'm all attention."

"I hope you won't think me foolish, sir, but you--you do seem
sympithetic like, though you can't help me, I know; and yet you told me
to come to you, and it's a relief to out with one's trouble; and Emma,
she don't understand, because she's going to be married, and she don't
think of nothin' else; and Cook, she says she's never 'ad nothin' to do
with plants, not excep' the eatin' sorts, like cabbages and turnips--"

"But, Hannah, you haven't given me a chance yet. Plants?" said Jack.

"Yes, sir; I'll tell you all about it if I may. You see, my 'ome's at
Brickland--that's a matter of four miles from Elmridge,--and my father,
he's steadily wastin', and doctor says there's no chance for him, not
unless he gets to one of the hopen-air 'ospitals, and he's not to doddle
about the green-'ouse any more."

"That's a bad business," said Jack, looking grave. "Then your father has
been a gardener?"

"Yes, and a salesman in a small way, sir. But now he's to give up, and
sell all the plants. Doctor says he'll never again be