[Synopsis of preceding chapters: Roseberry Gardens is the name of a nursery of the old type, with azaleas, magnolias, etc., in profusion. The owner, Mr. Worthington, is a stately, scholarly 

 gentleman of the old school, yet an advanced thinker, a plant lover always anxious to succeed with new introductions. Rudolph Trommel, the foreman, a Swiss, grows plants rather because he loves 

 them than from any business instinct. He also is a shrewd judge of human nature. Among the customers is Maurice J. Herford, a dilletante admirer of plants, an artist. Roberta Davenant is 

 secretary to Mr. Worthington and the protege of old Rudolph Trommel, who is constantly instructing her in garden craft and plant$ knowledge. From time to time Michael so arranges things that 

 Roberta has to act as guide and saleswoman to Maurice Herford. Roberta is self reliant and unconventional. Paul Fielding, a landscape student and relative of Major Pomerane, a resident, is 

 another visitor to the Nursery. He would go horseback riding with Roberta in the early mornings, to the secret delight of the Major, who twits his cousin with remarks concerning Roberta's 

 interest in the plants of the Nursery and of Maurice's interest in those same plants! One August day Michael suggests teaching Roberta how to bud and incidentally talks about the popular 

 use of a few of the commonest hedge plants to the neglect of others better but less used. Settling down to the work of budding, Michael becomes reminiscent. Later, Paul Fielding, discouraged 

 by Roberta's indifference, receives advice from his cousin. Major Pomerane. Paul visits Roseberry Gardens the following morning and to his delight is asked by Roberta to help her in making an 

 inventory of the plants in the nursery. He seizes the opportunity to tell her of his southern home. Roberta is interested. Mr. Worthington returns from abroad and he and Mr. Trommel 

 visit the houses. Meanwhile the inventory is completed. Roberta, on an early morning walk a little later, meets Paul Fielding, who announces his coming return to his own home. She naif 

 accepts an invitation to visit him at Christmas.] 



Chapter XX 



Roberta went back to the dingy little office 

 through the clear September morning without so 

 much as looking at the heavily berried shrubs that 

 brushed her sleeve and had so engrossed her atten- 

 tion a short half hour before. Back at the office she 

 put the gentians in a glass of water on her desk and 

 took up her morning's work. But she worked rather 

 absently. The trouble was that part of her mind 

 persisted in staying down where the young oaks 

 marked what Michael called the End Entirely, and 

 her vision remained at the break in the'hedge where 

 Paul Fielding had disappeared through the gap. 



She smiled to herself, whimsically, at Paul Field- 

 ing's very obvious secret, as one smiles at a child's 

 painstaking and fruitless concealment, for a girl of 

 nineteen is at some points ages older than a man of 

 nine and twenty and Paul was only twenty-six. 

 Women are nearer, curiously nearer, to the heart of 

 things. The Serpent must have had several conver- 

 sations with Mother Eve before the crucial step, and 

 she had doubtless sampled many of the apples of 

 wisdom before she thought of offering one to Adam. 

 Although she knew perfectly well what was in his 

 mind, Roberta was relieved that he had not forced 

 an issue, had not made it necessary for her to say 

 what she would not like to have said; she was glad 

 that he had not "spoiled things." And yet some- 

 thing in her, shy and reluctant, wished he had not 

 left quite so much unspoken. 



Then she pushed back the coppery hair, settled a 

 hair-pin or two snugly, by way of moral emphasis, 

 after the manner of women, and turned resolutely 

 to her work. 



Brief moments of poetry are followed rapidly 

 enough by prose in this work-a-day world, and prose 

 in a concrete form came definitely before Roberta. 



" 'Tis a teacher," said Michael O'Connor, " 'tis 

 Nature Study she's afther. Maybe you'd be good 

 enough, Miss Davenant — she says she knows you. 

 I've no time for the likes of her — I know the kind — 

 she'll not be buyin' a thing. It'll just be breakin' 

 branches an' askin' questions." 



Roberta left her desk and turned to meet the vis- 

 itor that Michael presently brought with him. 

 Tall and angular was the visitor, with pale brown 

 hair worn high over a high forehead. 



"Good afternoon, Miss Ross," said Roberta, re- 

 cognizing her directly. 



"I want some nature material, Miss Davenant; 

 stuff for a nature talk, you know, that I'm going to 

 give on Monday. You must have some things out 

 here that will do. Those are rather pretty — those 

 blue things — what are they?" and she nodded in 

 the direction of the gentians. 



Instinctively Roberta put out her hand and moved 

 them to a less conspicuous position, a little out of 

 range. "Gentians," she answered briefly; then, 

 hastily, as if to turn her visitor's attention, "Won't 



you come out? I daresay we can find some things 

 you would like for the children." 



But the visitor grated on her mood — grated abom- 

 inably. 



"What are those little green things?" pointing a 

 finger at some thrifty young roses. "What's the 

 freak red bush?" She pointed at a flaming evony- 

 mus. 



Roberta took her budding knife and cut for her 

 visitor some sturdy hard-wooded things — a branch 

 of bittersweet, of dogwood, of privet in berry, ex- 

 plaining to her the birds' liking for the ivory candi- 

 dissima berries. "I don't mind her having those," 

 she said to herself. "They've no feelings to hurt." 



Then seeing Michael at the end of a path, she went 

 hastily to him. "Do take her, Michael — she's 

 worse than a dealer!" 



" Is she so?" said Michael sympathetically. "Well, 

 I'll finish wid her. Dig the rest of the list, b'ys," he 

 called to his gang. "I'll be wid yez at the shed." 



"Miss Davenant is wanted at the office," he said 

 guilelessly as he took the post of cicerone. 



Twenty minutes later the two returned to the 

 office. Miss Ross, beside her hand-bag and note- 

 book, clasped a few fringed gentians whose roots 

 were dangling helplessly. 



"I wanted these," she said. "I'm giving the class 

 Bryant's 'Fringed Gentian', and you know that, if 

 possible, the class should be shown a flower. You 

 should have a daffodil if you do Wordworth's 'Daf- 

 fodils'. These seem scarce." 



"There are very few here now," said Roberta 

 slowly. "Those were down at the end of the lower 

 plantation?" 



"Yis," said Michael. "I hope you tell the chul- 

 dren that the flower's a biennal, and that they must 

 leave some always for seed, or it will be extermi- 

 nated!" said the girl. 



"Michael! How could you let her!" said Ro- 

 berta, reproachfully, when the Nature Student had 

 gone. 



"Let her what?" 



"Pull up the last gentians!" 



"Sure and I thought she was a fri'nd of yours. 

 She wanted to find some. They're wild, ye know. 

 She pulled up none of the nurs'ry stock, though she 

 did spile one rhodydendron wid breakin' av a branch. 

 They've very little sinse — have teachers. She called 

 a retinospora a juniper just afther I had showed her 

 the juniper. 



" ' How do you tell the differ? ' says she. 



"Make cuttings f'r an hour," says I. "Ye get 

 yer fingers well pricked — an 'tis a juniper; ye don't 

 an' 'tis a retinospora. 'Tis a fine botanical distinc- 

 tion." 



"I am sorry about the gentians," repeated the 

 girl reproachfully. 



"Sure," said Michael, "an' there's things ye 

 should be sorrier about, Miss Davenant, than thim! 



"Mr. Herford was here Chuseday, just as you 



122 



were off f'r the farm wid the long lad. Niver a plant 

 did he buy. He just came out to the greenhouse 

 an' set down by me. 'Michael,' says he, 'there's 

 an old sayin, 'Youth flies to youth.' 



"Niver a tree did he buy; niver a wor-rd did he 

 say about the foine place up the Hudson he's afther 

 buyin' that ye'r to fix up as ye like — niver a wor-rd! 

 What have ye done to my little man?" he de- 

 manded severely. "Ruin yer own prospects an' 

 that's wan thing an' 'tis bad enough; but to spile the 

 business of Roseb'ry Gardens, too! Him that spint 

 fifteen hundred dollars here last spring, and not a 

 cint this fall. How's that? " 



Roberta laughed. "Maybe he prefers spring 

 planting," she suggested. 



Michael shook his head. "Transplantin'," he 

 said, "that's all he cares about, an' whether the sile 

 an' situation he has is suitable." 



" 'Youth flies to youth,' Michael, says he, lookin' 

 as cheerful as a tinder hydrangea whin the frost has 

 struck it. 



"Sure an' it may," says I, "f'r a bit av cavoortin' 

 like a kite in the breeze, but whin it comes to settlin' 

 down in life, Miss Davenant has sinse enough to 

 choose a good sile an' situation an' not thrust to 

 luck wid a contractor's leavin's." 



"I didn't know you dealt in parables, Michael." 



"Sure, an' I'll deal on annything that '11 sind me 

 little man home happy." 



Chapter XXI 



"So OUR young friend Fielding is returning to 

 Carolina," said Mr. Worthington to Roberta a few 

 mornings later. 



"So he told me," she answered. 



"Ah," said the old gentleman. "He came in the 

 other evening to pay his respects. Quite an inter- 

 esting lad. He purposes trying camellia growing 

 on his estate; it will be a valuable experiment." 



"Very." 



"The first horticultural experiments were in South 

 Carolina, the first horticultural society. Laurens, 

 Franklin's fellow ambassador to France, had a fine 

 botanic garden at Charleston, but the horticultural 

 interest seems rather to have lapsed. I am rejoiced 

 to see it reviving. 



"So much could be done there — so much!" said 

 the old gentleman, who could always see horticul- 

 tural visions. "They should make hedges of Ca- 

 mellia japonica and of azalea, and yet I hear they 

 are using the Norway maple as a street tree and re- 

 placing their own Pride of India, a magnificent 

 thing ! And the live-oak, a tree of lordly habit. It is 

 the landscape men," said the old gentleman impa- 

 tiently. "They have no knowledge of the sylva and 

 flora of a given region, only a few recipes which must 

 serve for all parts of the country. An Arabian 

 gardener of the eleventh or twelfth century would, 

 if given our problems, work out a more interesting 

 and less hackneyed conclusion! I am indeed glad 



