120 A GARDEN DIARY 
MarcH 3, 1900 
Cye* good old Cuttle is leaving us; will be 
gone by this time next week, and I feel 
more sorry than seems quite reasonable! To-day, 
when we began talking the matter over together, 
a suspicious huskiness in my voice warned me 
that I should do well to get away from the sub- 
ject before my character for propriety was quite 
lost ! 
It is better I know for many reasons that he 
should leave. He cannot, indeed will not, un- 
dertake sole charge of both flower and kitchen 
garden, and to have anyone over him in either 
department is not to be dreamed of. Moreover 
his own home is four miles away, all up and down 
a long crooked lane, and a walk like that after a 
hard day’s work would be enough to try anyone 
half his age. Under ordinary circumstances the 
departure of a man who, though he has been with 
us now nearly three years, came at first as a mere 
jobber, would be a small affair on either side. 
Our poor old Cuttle is however so identified with 
