it seems to me I ought to let them know," Lois said, half
laughing again. "I do not like to be taken for what I am not; and I do
not want to have anybody's good opinion on false grounds." Her colour
rose a bit at the same time.

"My dear, it is nobody's business. And anybody that once knew you would
judge you for yourself, and not upon any adventitious circumstances.
They cannot, in my opinion, think of you too highly."

"I think it is better they should know at once that I am a poor girl,"
said Lois. However, she reflected privately that it did not matter, as
she was going away so soon. And she remembered also that Mr. Dillwyn
had not seemed to think any the less of her for what she had told him.
Did Tom Caruthers know?

"But, Lois, my dear, about your going-- There is no garden work to be
done yet. It is March."

"It will soon be April. And the ground must be got ready, and potatoes
must go in, and peas."

"Surely somebody else can stick in potatoes and peas."

"They would not know where to put them."

"Does it matter where?"

"To be sure it does!" said Lois, amused. "They must not go where they
were last year."

"Why not?"

"I don't know! It seems that every plant wants a particular sort of
food, and gets it, if it can; and so, the place where it grows is more
or less impoverished, and would have less to give it another year. But
a different sort of plant requiring a different sort of food, would be
all right in that place."

"Food?" said Mrs. Wishart. "Do you mean manure? you can have that put
in."

"No, I do not mean that. I mean something the plant gets from the soil
itself."

"I do not understand! Well, my dear, write them word where the peas
must go."

Lois laughed again.

"I hardly know myself, till I have studied the map," she said. "I mean,
the map of the garden. It is a more difficult matter than you can
guess, to arrange all the new order every spring; all has to be
changed; and upon where the peas go depends, perhaps, where the
cabbages go, and the corn, and the tomatoes, and everything else. It is
a matter for study."

"Can't somebody else do it for you?" Mrs. Wishart asked compassionately.

"There is no one else. We have just our three selves; and all that is
done we do; and the garden is under my management."

"Well, my dear, you are wonderful women; that is all I have to say.
But, Lois, you must pay me a visit by and by in the summer time; I must
have that; I shall go to the I