, and on the last Sunday he had been too
heavy-hearted to notice any change.

"Do you know anything of gardening?" the farmer went on. "They're very
short of hands, and I've promised to help what I could. The rooms
on the south side of the house are being got ready, and there's the
terrace-walk round that way wants doing up sadly. With this mild weather
the snowdrops and crocuses and all them spring flowers is springing up
finely; there's lots of them round that south side, and Branch can't
spare a man to sort them out and rake over the beds."

"I could do that," said Geoff, his eyes sparkling. "I don't know much
about gardening, but I know enough for that." It was a pleasant prospect
for him; a day or two's quiet work in the beautiful old garden; he would
feel almost like a gentleman again, he thought to himself. "When shall I
go, sir?" he went on eagerly.

"Why, the sooner the better," said Mr. Eames. "To-morrow morning.
That'll give you two good days. Branch wants it to look nice, for the
squire's ladies is coming with him. The south parlour is all ready.
There'll be a deal to do to the house--new furniture and all the rest of
it. He--the new squire's an old friend of mine and of my father's--and a
good friend he's been to me," he added in a lower voice.

"Are they going to live here?" asked Geoff. He liked the idea of working
there, but he rather shrank from being seen as a gardener's boy by the
new squire and "the ladies." "Though it is very silly of me," he
reflected; "they wouldn't look at me; it would never strike them that I
was different from any other."

"Going to live here," repeated the farmer; "yes, of course. The new
squire would be off his head not to live at Crickwood Bolders, when it
belongs to him. A beautiful place as it is too."

"Yes," agreed Geoff, heartily, "it would be hard to imagine a more
beautiful place. The squire should be a happy man."

He thought so more and more during the next two days. There was a great
charm about the old house and the quaintly laid out grounds in which
it stood--especially on the south side, where Geoff's work lay. The
weather, too, was delightfully mild just then; it seemed a sort of
foretaste of summer, and the boy felt all his old love for the country
revive and grow stronger than ever as he raked and weeded and did his
best along the terrace walk.

"I wish the squire would make me his gardener," he said to himself once.
"But even to be a good gardener I