112 JUNE 



care has been lavished upon it without stint, and 

 Nature has met the workers more than half-way, 

 and has given them of her best. But it is some- 

 thing more than a beautiful garden. It is a beauti- 

 ful background in a beautiful picture a background 

 for inspiring thoughts and brilliant conversation 

 which demand an outlet there before appearing on 

 the printed page to delight a wider though hardly 

 a more appreciative audience. 



Although Jim is an adorer of Elizabeth, his 

 special detestation in literature is the garden book, 

 and in this he is supported, as in many other things, 

 by Magdalen Clifford. If I have neglected before 

 to mention Magdalen, it is not because I do not 

 love her very dearly, though for years it would 

 never have occurred to me that she could be loved 

 of our family ; for she is that supplanter who 

 stepped into Jim's heritage. When she came to 

 the property she. was a toddling child governed 

 by her mother, who established a successful feud 

 between herself and us. When we returned to our 

 village there was no thought of any intercourse 

 between ourselves and our cousins at the Manor. 

 Magdalen's mother had made that impossible. 

 But four years later, on a day when joy bells rang 

 for Magdalen's coming of age, and the tenantry 

 were to be feasted and the county to be entertained 

 on that day, in the fresh spring morning, a slim 

 girl's figure swung through our garden gate, and 

 stepped up the straight path, and demanded to see 

 Jim and me. 



"I am of age to-day," she said. " I am eighteen, 

 and I may do as I like. I want you to let me know 



