e not doing
such evil work."

"Evil work! O no, Mrs. Barclay. The work that the Lord gives anybody to
do cannot be evil. It must be the very best thing he can do. And I do
not believe I should enjoy the spring--and the summer--and the
autumn--near so well, if I were not doing it."

"Must one be a gardener, to have such enjoyment?"

"_I_ must," said Lois, laughing. "If I do not follow my work, my work
follows me; and then it comes like a taskmaster, and carries a whip."

"But, Lois! that sort of work will make your hands rough."

Lois lifted one of her hands in its thick glove, and looked at it.
"Well," she said, "what then? What are hands made for?"

"You know very well what I mean. You know a time may come when you
would like to have your hands white and delicate."

"The time is come now," said Lois, laughing. "I have not to wait for
it. I like white hands, and delicate hands, as well as anybody. Mine
must do their work, all the same. Something might be said for my feet,
too, I suppose," she added, with another laugh.

At the moment she had finished outlining an other bed, and was now
trampling a little hard border pathway round it, making the length of
her foot the breadth of the pathway, and setting foot to foot close
together, so bit by bit stamping it round. Mrs. Barclay looked on, and
wished some body else could have looked on, at the bright, fresh face
under the little old hat, and the free action and spirit and accuracy
with which everything that either feet or hands did was done. Somehow
she forgot the coarse dress, and only saw the delicate creature in it.

"Lois, I do not like it!" she began again. "Do you know, some people
are very particular about these little things--fastidious about them.
You may one day yet want to please one of those very men."

"Not unless he wants to please me first!" said Lois, with a glance from
her path-treading.

"Of course. I am supposing that."

"I don't know him!" said Lois. "And I don't see him in the distance!"

"That proves nothing."

"And it wouldn't make any difference if I did."

"You are mistaken in thinking that. You do not know yet what it is to
be in love, Lois."

"I don't know," said Lois. "Can't one be in love with one's
grandmother?"

"But, Lois, this is going to take a great deal of your time."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you want all your time, to give to more important things. I can't
bear to have you drop them all to plant potatoes. Could