ies, and such like but as I remembered afterward the table that Mrs.
Vedder set was wonderfully dainty--dainty not merely with flowers (with
which it was loaded), but with the quality of the china and silver. It
was plainly the table of no ordinary gardener or caretaker--but this
conclusion did not come to me until afterward, for as I remember it, we
were in a deep discussion of fertilizers.

Mrs. Vedder cooked and served breakfast herself, and did it with a skill
almost equal to Harriet's--so skillfully that the talk went on and we
never once heard the machinery of service.

After breakfast we all went out into the garden, Mrs. Vedder in an
old straw hat and a big apron, and Mr. Vedder in a pair of old brown
overalls. Two men had appeared from somewhere, and were digging in the
vegetable garden. After giving them certain directions Mr. Vedder and
I both found five-tined forks and went into the rose garden and began
turning over the rich soil, while Mrs. Vedder, with pruning-shears, kept
near us, cutting out the dead wood.

It was one of the charming forenoons of my life. This pleasant work,
spiced with the most interesting conversation and interrupted by a
hundred little excursions into other parts of the garden, to see this
or that wonder of vegetation, brought us to dinner-time before we fairly
knew it.

About the middle of the afternoon I made the next discovery. I heard
first the choking cough of a big motor-car in the country road, and
a moment later it stopped at our gate. I thought I saw the Vedders
exchanging significant glances. A number of merry young people tumbled
out, and an especially pretty girl of about twenty came running through
the garden.

"Mother," she exclaimed, "you MUST come with us!"

"I can't, I can't," said Mrs. Vedder, "the roses MUST be pruned--and
see! The azaleas are coming into bloom."

With that she presented me to her daughter.

And, then, shortly, for it could no longer be concealed, I learned that
Mr. and Mrs. Vedder were not the caretakers but the owners of the estate
and of the great house I had seen on the hill. That evening, with an air
almost of apology, they explained to me how it all came about.

"We first came out here," said Mrs. Vedder, "nearly twenty years ago,
and built the big house on the hill. But the more we came to know
of country life the more we wanted to get down into it. We found it
impossible up there--so many unnecessary things to see to and care
for