SEPTEMBER DAYS 
^42 
appear. But this may not be for more than a' week 
or ten days.” 
Joseph seemed quite resigned to the work before 
him. I was also enlightened about the queer smell 
that had permeated our back hall of late. It was 
there that Little Joseph had made his mixture. 
It is his patience and wise persistence in our 
garden that has made the neighbours say pleasant 
things about the way we have beautified the Six 
Spruces. Miss Wiseman has told us that the place 
is beginning to be talked about in Nestly, and even 
loved as it was long ago, before our great-aunt 
grew old and severe in her ways. For, when Aunt 
Amanda was young, she was fond of people, and 
the Six Spruces was the gayest place in this part of 
the country. 
Sometimes we have tried tO' find out from Mrs. 
Keith why it was that our great-aunt had changed 
so much that, when she died, she loved no one, and 
had only the blush-rose bush and the lemon verbena 
in her garden. 
Mrs. Keith invariably answers: “It is a long 
story, my dears, and this perhaps is not the most 
proper time to tell it.” 
She is very particular about doing things at 
exactly the right time. 
For some days a haze has hung over the garden. 
It has made us notice the flowers less, and think 
more of the form of the trees, and of the colours 
that are tipping the still green foliage. The birds 
