nds to his own inclination, and he went away, stately and sad,
professing that "_our wull was his pleesure_," but yet reminding us that
he would do it "_with feelin's_,"--even then, I say, the triumphant
master felt humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance
only, that he was taking a mean advantage of the other's low estate, and
that the whole scene had been one of those "slights that patient merit
of the unworthy takes."

In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting
sunflowers and dahlias, wallflowers and roses, and holding in supreme
aversion whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned, or wild. There was one
exception to this sweeping ban. Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on
the last count, he not only spared, but loved; and when the shrubbery
was being thinned, he stayed his hand and dexterously manipulated his
bill in order to save every stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me
once, speaking in that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned
common folk can use nowadays, his heart grew "_proud_" within him when
he came on a burn-course among the braes of Manor that shone purple with
their graceful trophies; and not all his apprenticeship and practice for
so many years of precise gardening had banished these boyish
recollections from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the
beauty of all that was bygone. He abounded in old stories of his
boyhood, and kept pious account of all his former pleasures, and when he
went (on a holiday) to visit one of the fabled great places of the earth
where he had served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite
reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such as might have
shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques.

But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect his liking
for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned all flowers
together. They were but garnishings, childish toys, trifling ornaments
for ladies' chimney-shelves. It was towards his cauliflowers and peas
and cabbage that his heart grew warm. His preference for the more useful
growths was such that cabbages were found invading the flower-plots, and
an outpost of savoys was once discovered in the centre of the lawn. He
would prelect over some thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, piling
reminiscence on reminiscence of former and perhaps yet finer specimens.
Yet even then he did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed,
raised "_