until Monday mornin'. "It is real country out there,
too, isn't it?"

"Blamed near an hour away," says I. "Ought to be, hadn't it?"

"I hope they have lilac bushes in bloom," says Vee. "Do you know,
Torchy, if I lived in the country, I'd have those if nothing else.
Wouldn't you?"

"I expect so," says I, "though I ain't doped out just what I would do in
a case like that. It ain't seemed worth while. But if lilacs are the
proper stunt for a swell country place, I'll bet Mr. Robert's got 'em."

By the time we'd been shot out to Harbor Hills station, though, I'd
forgot whether it was lilacs or lilies-of-the-valley that Vee was
particular about; for Mr. Robert goes along with us, and he's joshin'
us about our livin' in a four-and-bath and sportin' a French chef.

"Really," says he, "to live up to him you ought to move into a brewer's
palace on Riverside Drive, at least."

"Oh, Battou would be satisfied if I'd lease Madison Square park for him,
so he could raise onions," says I.

Which reminds Mr. Robert of something.

"Oh, I say!" he goes on. "You must see my garden. I'm rather proud of
it, you know."

"Your garden!" says I, grinnin'. "You don't mean you've been gettin' the
hoe and rake habit, Mr. Robert?"

Honest, that's the last thing you'd look for from him, for until he got
married about the only times he ever strayed from the pavements was when
he went yachtin'. But by the way he talks now you'd think farmer was his
middle name.

"Now, over there," says he, after we've been picked up at the station by
his machine and rolled off three or four miles, "over there I am raising
a crop of Italian clover to plow in. That's a new hedge I'm setting out,
too--hydrangeas, I think. It takes time to get things in shape, you
see."

"Looks all right to me, as it is," says I. "You got a front yard big
enough to get lost in."

Also the house ain't any small shack, with all its dormers and striped
awnin's and deep verandas.

But it's too nice an afternoon to spend much time inside, and after
we've found Mrs. Robert, Vee asks to be shown the garden.

"Certainly," says Mr. Robert. "I will exhibit it myself. That is--er--by
the way, Gertrude, where the deuce is that garden of ours?"

Come to find out, it was Mrs. Robert who was the pie-plant and radish
expert. She could tell you which rows was beets and which was corn
without lookin' it up on her chart.

She'd been takin' a course in landscape-gardenin', too; and as sh