excellent
parsley.

"You don't find that anything comes and--and takes away--" she
hazarded, but came to a full stop.

"There's slugs," answered Mr. Battershall stolidly, "and there's
snails. Terrible full o' snails the old wall was till I got the
Master to repoint it."

"Would snails--"

"Eh?" he asked as she hesitated.

"They might take away the--the flowers, for instance."

Old Battershall guffawed.

"You wasn' sarchin' for flowers, was you? Dang me, but that's a good
'un! . . . I don't raise my own seed, missie, if that's your meanin';
an' that bein' so, he'd have to get up early as would find a flower
in my parsley."

Ah, this might explain it! As she eyed him, her childish mind
searching the mystery, yet keeping its own secret, Corona resolved to
steal down to the garden one of these fine mornings very early
indeed.

"Now I'll tell you something about parsley," said Mr. Battershall;
"something very curious, and yet it must be true, for I heard the
Master tell it in one of his sermons. The ancients, by which I mean
the Greeks, set amazin' store by the yerb. There was a kind of
Athletic Sports--sort of Crystal Palace meetin'--_the_ great event,
as you might say, and attractin' to sportsmen all over Greece--"

"All over what?"

"Greece. Which is a country, missy, or, at any rate, was so.
The meeting was held every four years; and what d'ye suppose was the
top prize, answerin', as you may say, to the Championship Cup?
Why, a wreath o' parsley! 'Garn!' says you. And 'Parsley!' says
you. Which a whole wreath of it might cost fivepence at the
outside. . . ."

Now Corona, whose mind was ever picking up and hoarding such trifles,
had heard Uncle Copas two days before drop a remark that the Greeks
knew everything worth knowing. Plainly, then, the parsley held some
wonderful secret after all. She must contrive to outwit old
Battershall, and get to the garden ahead of him, which would not be
easy, by the way.

To begin with, on these summer mornings old Battershall rose with the
lark, and boasted of it; and, furthermore, the door of her father's
bedroom stood open all night. To steal abroad she must pass it, and
he was the lightest of sleepers. She did not intend to be beaten,
though; and meanwhile she punctually visited the parsley morning and
evening.

Heaven knows how the day-dream came to take possession of her.
She was not consciously lonely. She worshipped this marvellous new
home.