FRANKNESS AND GARDENING 207 



"I've everything systematized, and it's easier for me 

 to go on than drop the needles for a fortnight or so and 

 then find, on coming back, that you have been knitting 

 a mitten when I had started the frame of a sock," 

 Maria said, laughing; "make flower hay while the crop 

 is to be had for the gathering, my lady ! Another year 

 you may not have such free hands 1" 



Then my protests grew weaker and weaker, for 

 the establishment had thriven marvellously well with- 

 out my daily interference. The jam closet shows 

 rows of everything that might be made of strawberries, 

 cherries, currants, and raspberries, and it suddenly 

 struck me that possibly if domestic machinery is set 

 going on a consistent basis, whether it is not a mistake 

 to do too much oiling and tightening of a screw here 

 and there, unless distinct symptoms of a halt render it 

 absolutely necessary. 



"Very well," I said, with a show of spunk, "give me 

 one single task, that I may not feel as if I had no part 

 in the homemaking. Something as ornamental and 

 frivolous as you choose, but that shall occupy me at 

 least two hours a day!" 



Maria paused a moment; we were then standing in 

 front of the fireplace, where a jar of bayberry 

 filled the place of logs between the andirons. First, 



