respect. As Uncle Jefferson says she
can 'put de big pot in de li'l one en mek soup outer de laigs.' He's
teaching me now about flowers--it's surprising how many kinds he knows.
He's a walking herbarium."

"Come and see mine," she said. "Roses are our specialty--we have to live
up to the Rosewood name. But beyond the arbors, are beds and beds of
other flowers. See--by this big tree are speedwell and delphinium. The
tree is a black-walnut. It's a dreadful thing to have one as big as
that. When you want something that costs a lot of money you go and look
at it and wonder which you want most, that particular luxury or the
tree. I know a girl who had two in her yard only a little bigger than
this, and she went to Europe on them. But so far I've always voted for
the tree."

"Perhaps you've not been sufficiently tempted."

"Maybe," she assented, and in a bar of light from a window, stooped over
a glimmering patch to pull him a sprig of bluebells. "The wildings are
hard to find," she said, "so I grow a few here. What ghostly tintings
they show in this half-light! My corn-flowers aren't in bloom yet. Here
are wild violets. They are the single ones, you know, the kind two
children play cock-fighting with." She picked two of the blossoms and
hooked their heads together. "See, both pull till one rooster's head
drops off." She bent again and passed her hand lovingly over a mass of
starry blooms. "And here are some bluet, the violet roosters' little
pale-blue hens. How does _your_ garden come on?"

"Famously. Uncle Jefferson has shanghaied a half-dozen negro
gardeners--from where I can't imagine--and he's having the time of his
life hectoring over them. He refers to the upper and lower terraces as
'up- and down-stairs.' I've got seeds, but it will be a long time before
they flower."

"Oh, would you like some slips?" she cried. "Or, better still, I can
give you the roses already rooted--Mad Charles and Marechal Neil and
Cloth of Gold and cabbage and ramblers. We have geraniums and fuchsias,
too, and the coral honeysuckle. That's different from the wild one, you
know."

"You are too good! If you would only advise me where to set them! But I
dare say you think me presuming."

She turned her full face to him. "'Presuming!' You're punishing me now
for the dreadful way I talked to you about Damory Court--before I knew
who you were. Oh, it was unpardonable! And after the splendid thing you
had done--I read about it that same eveni