say it made him look much better, but it did seem to make him feel much happier. We went and waited in the Haw, until Bogy came out to see how blue the sky was over his big hawthorntree. He nodded to us in the friendliest way, and asked if we were coming into his garden.

'Yes,' cried Paul, running across the cart-ruts in a great hurry, with his hat hanging round his neck, as if it might soon have been too late.

'We are all coming, thank you very much,' said Patricia, politely. 'Mother says we may, if we don't trouble you. Do we trouble you?'

'Not at all,' said Bogy, cheerfully, and he took Paul's hand, and led us inside the walls of his Castle, and up the hawthorn walk.

All round Bogy's house there were old lawns of grass, with beech-trees round them, and in the grass under the trees there were snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, and anemones, that grew, not in patches of two or three, but in sheets, for afterwards we saw them, one after another. Before the house there was a lawn so old and mossy that your feet sank into it as you walked ; at one end was the house, with a row of grey gables in the roof, and long windows that opened on the grass; at the other end there was a low brick wall, with a wide gateway, and then you went down three stone steps into Bogy's garden.

And when you got there, it was the most beautiful old garden that ever was seen. We sighed for joy when we saw it, we nearly screamed. It was divided here and there by yew hedges, so that we kept finding one new place after another; and it seemed to lie all in a warm hollow sheltered by the beech-trees, where there was no wind, but nearly always sun. The soil looked as if it had been a garden for hundreds of years, and the plants grew, and grew, and grew, and were never disturbed. We saw whole beds of lilies of the valley, clove carnations, burning bush, fleur-de-lis, moss and cabbage roses, and what we call thumplilies, because we thump each other on the backs with the heads, but what mother calls day lilies, and crown imperials, and the double sort that are called crown-upon-crown, and more old-fashioned plants and shrubs than I can remember.

Bobby looked round at them all, and sighed.

'Did you make all this garden yourself?' he asked.

'Oh, no,' Bogy said. 'This is a very old garden, as you can see. I have only put in my favourite plants since I came. I came here because of the garden.'

'I never saw such a beautiful place in all my life,' I said, as earnestly as I could. May we go down the walks?'

Bogy said that we might go wherever we liked. He went with us, and showed us all the nicest plants, and told us about them. Bobby began by saying, 'Do you mind us asking a few questions? It is a thing, you know, that nurse will not allow.'

Bogy said that he did not mind it in the least, and after this was settled, I must say that we asked more than a few. We found that Bogy knew more things about plants than any one we had ever known before; and he told us what countries they had first come from, and how they had been discovered, and about the travels of great botanists and plant-hunters. How we did enjoy it!

Then he took us to his herb-garden, for he had a real old herb-garden, so old, and funny, and pretty. There were yew hedges all round it, to keep out the winds, and you went in through archways cut in them. Inside it was all grass, and the beds were cut in it as if they were a pack of cards laid down. There was an ace of hearts set with marigolds, and a seven of spades with rosemary, and a three of diamonds with lavender, and a seven of hearts with rue, and an ace of clubs with bergamot, and so on with tansy, and thyme, and sage, and horehound, and balm, and pennyroyal, and angelica, and more herbs than I ever heard of.

Peter Grimes lived behind the herb-garden, in a very low white cottage, with a thatched roof with eaves where the swallows built one under another, for Peter Grimes would not have the nests touched. He had bees, too, a long row of hives, with a bed of borage in front, and another row of hollyhocks behind, for he said the bees were fond of them. Peter Grimes was the gardener who had lived in the cottage long before Bogy came to the house, but we had not known him before. He was a very nice old man, when you got to know him really well. His deafness made him seem sulky, but he was not; only he was very much offended if you thought he was deaf.

The first time we saw him, he was working in Bogy's herbgarden, as we went through it, and Bobby immediately stood still, and began to talk to him, and ask questions, as he always will, if he is allowed to do it. Peter Grimes kept saying, 'Eh? Eh?' until at last Bobby shouted as hard as he could

'I was saying-my mustard and cress-did not come upthis year. I wonder why?'

'Summat fails most years,' Peter Grimes said, suddenly Last year it was the radishers. And I'm

growing very stiff.

not hard of hearing.'

Bobby blushed till his very ears were red.

'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I thought you were.' 'Well, I'm not,' said Peter Grimes, huffily.

'I beg your pardon,' repeated Bobby, holding out his hand. 'I very much beg it.'

So Peter Grimes said more condescendingly, No offence meant cannot be took.'

Then he looked at his own hand rather doubtfully, rubbed it down the right leg of his trousers, and shook Bobby's hand, and after that they were always good friends.

We came to the nicest part of Bogy's garden last. We went under an arch that was made by two great cedars of Lebanon, and found ourselves in another little garden shut in by the hedges.

It was so silent there that it might haye been miles and miles away from anybody living; there were only some wood-pigeons cooing in the trees. It never looked like a common garden, even before Bogy told us what it meant; it was so sunny, and old, and silent, and the air was very still and sweet. There were no walks, but it was all grass, and the beds lay round about in the grass, and there was a big old sundial in the middle of the garden.

We sat on the steps of the sundial while Bogy told us what this garden was, as he said his godmother had explained it to him, when he was a little boy, and she lived at the old house. It was full of plants dedicated to the saints, so that there was a flower for every saint, to bloom on the proper day. It was a place quite different from any other; it seemed to us from the first as if we ought to talk in low voices there, almost as if it were a church.

'And my godmother used to tell me, when I was a little boy,' Bogy said to us, 'that when this old house was a priory, as I was telling you just now, this garden was a small graveyard. I do not know whether it is true or not, but my godmother believed it, and would never let this place be disturbed. Its name is the Saints' Rest.'

'I feel like the Queen of Sheba,' said Bobby, despondingly, when we were going back down the hawthorn walk at last. Bogy smiled, and asked why.

'Because when she had seen Solomon's things, there was no more spirit in her, you know,' said Bobby, very precisely, for it takes him a long time to learn a thing, but he never forgets it afterwards. There is no more spirit left in me. I think it is no use for us to go on messing with our little gardens.'

'Ah, but there you are wrong,' said Bogy; 'for where would my old garden have been if some one had never begun it? Some one must begin in everything.'

'Yes, I see,' said Bobby, slowly; 'but I don't know that it is much use for me to begin things of any kind, because of them getting done so slowly. I might never see the end of them.'

'But they will be done for some one else,' said Bogy.

Bobby is a very truthful boy. He even says things that he need not, because he will never let people think anything untrue about him. So he looked up in Bogy's face, quite steadily, but beginning to be a little red in the face.

'But I would rather have things nice for myself than for any one else,' he said.

‘Ah,' said Bogy, quietly, looking down at Bobby as steadily as he looked up. 'But a gentleman not often thinks of himself.'

Bobby stood with his hands behind him, looking up at Bogy without a word for two or three moments, and then the red in his face rose higher and higher until it reached his hair.

'I am not enough a gentleman yet,' he said. 'But perhaps I might grow to be more.'

VIII.

ABOUT A REAL TEA-PARTY.

THE most exciting thing that had ever happened to us was when Bogy invited us to tea. Grizzle brought the note (he was Bogy's old servant, we called him Grizzle); it was addressed to Patricia in the most interesting manner possible. She was, so pleased. When mother heard of the note, she smiled, and said we might go, but Patricia must write a proper answer. So she did; at least, we all helped. We got some paper from the library, and went under the nursery table, and made it up. We enjoyed it extremely.

Patricia took the chair, and sat with the paper on her knees, and wrote with a pencil that needed to be wetted rather often. We had also Mriar's 'Polite Letter Writer,' which she had lent to us. It did not look as if she used it much herself, but she

was very much flattered when we borrowed it, and Patricia thought it might help us.

'What shall I put first?' asked Patricia.

"Dear Bogy," said Bobby, who is a very plain boy.

'Indeed, no!' said Patricia, scornfully. That sounds just like you, Bobby. I mean it to be much grander than that.

see how Bogy begins.'

6.66

Let us

So she unfolded the note very grandly, and we listened respectfully, though we all did know every word of it by heart. Bogy presents his compliments to Miss Scrope, and he--" You see, Bogy sends his compliments to me; what ought I to do?'

'You ought to send them back,' I said.

Oh, no, Patricia, you ought to keep them. I am sure it is rude to send them back,' said Annis.

6

'Stupid!' cried Bobby, indignantly. She means hers, not

his!'

"Miss Scrope

'Hush, everybody!' commanded Patricia. presents her compliments to Bogy." I've got that; what must I put next?' And she bit the end of her pencil, and looked round, though she had just told everybody to hush; but when you get your first real invitation, you are perhaps a little hard for others to bear with.

'Put that we are coming,' said Bobby.

'Well-but-"Miss Scrope presents her compliments,' said Patricia again, for she thought it sounded very nice-"her compliments to Bogy, and she thanks

6

She!' shouted Bobby, 'No, Mrs. Patricia, you aren't going alone! Put" they!""

'Let me tell you, Major Bobby, that Bogy's note is to me.' He asks us just as much as you.'

'Well, don't begin to argue,' I said, anxiously. 'Let us see what the Letter Writer says.'

So Bobby opened it, and read the index very slowly and enjoyingly.

--

"Of the proper mode of addressing the Queen, the nobility, the clergy" Bogy isn't a queen, or a nobility, or a clergy, so it can't be that. "Of letters of rec-rec-recommendation,"I don't know what they are. No, you don't, Patricia, or anybody else. "Of offers of marriage." I consider this book of Mriar's,' said Bobby severely, 'a very stupid book. "Of balls; of dinnerparties." It doesn't say of tea-parties at all, Patricia.'