"Take them plants to the shed, b'ys," 

 he said briskly, addressing his elderly 

 assistants. "Here's the tag for them, 

 Give it to Conklin. Quick! Run!" He 

 spoke with such infectious energy that 

 the old workmen disappeared on a 

 brisk trot. Then he turned to the 

 speaker with a smile as infectious as his 

 order, and took off his old felt hat with a 

 bit of a flourish. 



"Good morning to you, Miss Daven- 

 ant. 'Tis yerself that looks like a piece 

 of the morning!" 



As she stood in the dingy doorway, the 

 girl was good to look upon. The sun- 

 light touched her coppery hair to red- 

 gold. She could not have been more 

 than eighteen, and the roundness of her 

 face, the troubled look about the mouth, 

 made her look even younger. But there 

 was a boyish clearness and directness 

 in the gaze of the gray eyes and a de- 

 cision in the chin that contradicted the 

 dimple. She wore heavy, English- 

 looking boots that had been afield already 

 that morning and a rough, brown tweed 

 skirt, rather short, and a jacket with 

 deep pockets. 



She put her hand into one of the 

 pockets and pulled out some slips of 

 papers. 



"Whatever is the trouble, Miss Daven- 

 ant?" 



"Tompkins," answered the girl 

 briefly. 



"Him again!" 



"He won't take the cases for the Brazil 

 shipment — says he can't. He's half 

 the load that Washy has and those boxes 

 ought to go." 



"Is that all?" exclaimed Michael. 

 He followed her into the office and went 

 briskly through to the packing shed, 

 where were the large wooden cases 

 and the protesting teamster. Outside, 

 through the doorway, the horses and the 

 waiting, half-loaded truck. 



"Ye cu'dn't manage to get the boxes 

 on, Tompkins?" he said sympathetically. 

 " 'Tis a shame. The b'ys here will help 

 you. Come, lads, up with them! " 



"No, no!" protested Tompkins, as 

 one of the offending boxes was almost 

 in place on the truck, "I didn't need 

 help to get them on " 



"I know, that's the foine man," broke 

 in Michael, " 'tis the ne'er-do-weels that 

 are afraid of their jobs, but the b'ys may 

 as well help you. Come, lads up with 

 the other!" 



"I don't want them on; I won't have 

 them!" protested the luckless teamster. 

 "I can't go to all those places. I'll 

 never get home ! " He was a small, dark 

 man with the little chin beard, midway 

 between a goatee and a full beard which 

 clergymen wore in the '6o's. 



"Give me your list, Tompkins," said 

 Michael O'Connor soothingly. "Pier 

 36, Pier 15, the Mary Powell" he read. 



"It w'ud be hard for a stupid lad or for 

 a greenhorn, but 'tis a clever man like 

 yerself, Tompkins, that can do it and 

 do it foine. Thim big cases ye'll put 

 off first, and the rest goes as aisy as a 

 May morning. Ye'll do it foine, ye'll 

 plan it so there's not a hitch. Ye 

 needn't be worried, man. Ye don't 

 re-elize, Tompkins, what a cliver team- 

 ster ye are. But I know how ye felt," 

 he concluded sympathetically, "fearing 

 ye'd have to disapp'int the young lady 

 on a pretty morning like this. Up wid 

 ye now! Here's yer receipts an' the 

 ferry-money." 



"How did you ever do it, Michael?" 

 asked the young secretary as he re- 

 entered the office. She turned from 

 watching the grumbling teamster as he 

 went down the road between the great 

 magnolias. 



Michael grinned and nodded com- 

 placently as he settled the Bismarckian 

 neckerchief. 



"Molasses," he said briefly. "It 

 seems a bit sticky, but 'tis the best thing 

 I know to make the wheels of life run 

 smooth." 



Chapter II 



The young secretary lived in a great 

 old-fashioned house, square and white 

 painted in the older part of the town. 



The freshet of village improvement had 

 struck Meadowport, sweeping away the 

 old boundaries, carrying off the trim 

 picket fences, thrusting new little houses, 

 coquettish and impertinent and highly 

 colored, all gables and turrets and piazzas 

 and gingerbread trimmings, between the 

 old houses, spoiling the beautiful spacing, 

 troubling the quietness of the wide, elm- 

 fringed street. But the Davenant place 

 remained unchanged. Not even a 

 flower bed broke the smooth stretch of 

 green under the great elm trees. The 

 picket fence stood its ground, dividing 

 the lawn from the garden and running 

 beside the shady sidewalk, reaching past 

 the house and the garden until it reached 

 the place beyond. 



The garden had not changed either. 

 Behind the box borders were stiff little 

 bushes of flowering almond, very soft 

 and pink for all their stiffness, tall cor- 

 chorus bushes that met over the central 

 path. , Beside the fence was a row of 

 currant bushes with broad blades of iris 

 coming up between ; in the shady corner 

 under the fragrant lilac bushes there was 

 lily-of-the- valley. 



Because of its long and intimate fellow- 

 ship with human folk, an old garden has 

 a curious charm and appeal. Whatever 

 has happened in the house of which it is 

 a part — birth and life and death, separa- 

 tion and meeting — there is the same 

 sweetness and fragrance each recurring 

 year for the household, whether sad- 

 dened, or gay and content. For which 

 120 



reason the lilacs, the lily-of-the-valley 

 and the little almond bushes are woven 

 into the life and feeling with a sweetness 

 and a poignancy that the gardenless folk 

 know nothing about. 



Inside, the house had changed as little 

 as the outside. You passed through the 

 gate up a walk of small rounded cobble- 

 stones and rapped with the great brass 

 knocker on the wide door, beautifully 

 paneled, and while you waited looked up 

 at the large oriel window with leaded 

 panes. Within, the house was dim and 

 quiet, with heavy, handsome furniture. 

 You spoke quietly when you stepped 

 into the great parlor — at least the young 

 secretary did — for the chairs and the 

 long Chippendale sofa stood as they 

 had stood before she was born. Even 

 the whatnot in the corner bore the same 

 ornaments on the same shelves — the 

 carved ivory elephant from Japan, the 

 boxes of sandalwood from India. Even 

 at eighteen, Roberta Davenant had the 

 idea that if she did anything amiss in 

 that room or sat in the wrong chair, the 

 chairs and tables would know it, would 

 express their opinion of her irreverence 

 when she was gone and would whisper 

 it to her aunts. 



The only modern thing in the place 

 was Miss Roberta. She lived with three 

 maiden aunts, all more than sixty, dim 

 and stately and decorous like the furni- 

 ture of the old house. In fact her aunts, 

 with their dark curls that should be 

 gray, and clear, pale complexions, re- 

 minded Roberta of the heavy black 

 walnut, marble-topped furniture of their 

 bedrooms. The girl herself was more 

 akin to the vivid color of the garden. 



Roberta Davenant had been, from 

 the first, a surprise in Meadowport. 

 Her mother had been even more of a 

 surprise, for Robert Davenant, a hard- 

 working-lawyer and staid quiet bachelor 

 until forty-three, had the experience 

 which sometimes, but rarely, befalls a 

 New Englander, when a temperament 

 starved and repressed broke suddenly 

 free, sweeping his life as clear of tradition 

 as a freshet sweeps a mountain brook of 

 last year's leaves; and he married, after 

 a sudden and impetuous wooing, a girl 

 twenty years his junior, a Southerner 

 with copper-colored hair and vivid color 

 and as gay as a bobolink on a June 

 morning. And he brought her back to 

 the old house at Meadowport; and 

 Meadowport looked at her and dis- 

 approved. Meadowport feared she 

 would make Robert Davenant unhappy; 

 that she would prove "flighty," for with 

 that hair and coloring one "never can 

 tell," and Meadowport waited omin- 

 ously. 



But Robert Davenant grew ten years 

 younger and radiantly happy. She 

 brought flowers into the house, bowls of 

 great crimson roses in the dim corners, 



