COMMUTER'S WIFE 305 



Scotch gardener of experience, and then let him 

 engage his own assistants and give him full control," 

 I said, feeling sure that this was one of the many 

 cases where the master and mistress must learn of 

 the man. 



" What ? and have no say-so about my own 

 things ? I guess not. We began that way with a 

 ' trained English gardener,' and if you please, when 

 I ordered him to trim the rooms with cherry blossoms 

 from the young trees for my Japanese tea (I sat 

 under an umbrella and wore a ravishing costume 

 imported especially), he had the impudence to tell me 

 that if he picked the flowers, we must do without 

 cherries later. And when I told him that it was the 

 business of a trained man to see that we had cherries 

 anyhow, he left! When- I asked why, the coach- 

 man, who is Irish and sociable, told me that the 

 ' blamed thing ' said he ' had no use for such as us.' 

 Just fancy ! " 



I suppressed a fit of giggles with great difficulty, 

 but Effie helped me out by arranging the tea table. 

 Ice and lemon this time, as befitted a very muggy, 

 hot afternoon. 



As my lady sat and sipped, she has recently 

 lost a molar and so used her lips like a beak, she 

 forgot her woes, and suddenly reverted to me, saying, 



