Hall compete with the delight of wandering with
him through the gardens of Mossgiel, listening to his history of the
various plants--for Michael had learned from his father where most of
them had first been found, and how and by whom they had been introduced
to their present abodes--and learning from him the chief points of
distinction between the different tribes of the vegetable world, and
many other things of which older people are often ignorant. But
acquainted as Michael was with the inhabitants of the garden, they did
not afford him his most vivid enjoyment. Mechanical pursuits were his
passion.

Before Lilian was four years old, she had ridden in a carriage of his
construction, which he boasted the most unskilful hand on the most
unequal road could not, except from _malice prepense_, upset. To see
Michael a clergyman, or, if that might not be, a lawyer, was Mrs.
Grahame's dream of life; but when she whispered it to her husband, he
shook his head, with a grave smile, and pointed to the boy, who stood
near, putting the finishing touch to what he called his "magical glass."
This was the case of an old spy-glass, in which he had so disposed
several mirrors, made of a toilet-glass long since broken, as to enable
the person using the instrument to see objects in a very different
direction from that to which it appeared to be directed. The fond
parents watched his movements in silence for a few minutes: suddenly he
called in a glad voice, "Here, father, come and look through my magical
glass."

Mr. Grahame obeyed the summons, saying to his wife, "He'll make a good
mechanic--better not spoil that, for a poor clergyman or lawyer."

Michael had the advantage of the best schools to which his father could
gain access; and his teachers joined in declaring that his father might
make what he would of him, but his own inclination for mechanics
continued as fixed as ever, and Mr. Grahame was equally fixed in his
determination to let his inclination decide his career.

"Let him be what he will, he must be something above the ordinary, or
your high people will remember against him that his father was a
gardener," said Mr. Grahame to his wife; "and you may be sure he'll rise
highest in what he loves."

At sixteen Michael Grahame commenced his apprenticeship to the trade of
a mathematical instrument maker, to the perfect satisfaction of himself
and his father, the secret annoyance of his mother, and the openly
expressed chagri