Sally faced about.  “The idea!” said she.  “Of course you wouldn’t.  It’s not yours, sir, to give!  But I’d cut it off, when you weren’t looking!”

CHAPTER XIV

TWO AND TWO

“Shall we make the haying a society affair for ladies in French frocks, or an athletic event for a lot of young fellows who don’t know a rake from a pitchfork?”

The questioner was a tall young man in corduroy trousers and high boots, a blue flannel shirt and a nondescript hat—­though the hat had come off as he approached the garden, where Sally Lane, in blue gingham and short sleeves, was carefully setting out some spice-pink roots.

Sally looked up.  She had become accustomed in a measure to seeing the heir of the house of Burnside thus attired, and to noting the daily deepening coat of tan upon his face and arms, but it never failed to strike her afresh as a miracle which a year ago would not have seemed possible.

“I haven’t the faintest intention of inviting any ladies in French frocks,” she replied.  “Do you know any gentlemen in frock coats who wish to be asked?”

“Plenty—­but I’m not asking any invitations for them—­this time.  No—­it’s a bunch of the Reverend Donald Ferry’s friends I want to invite.”

“The Reverend—­how odd that sounds!—­Who are they?”

“News-boys, boot-blacks, office-boys, messenger boys—­every kind of boy.  He proposes to buy or borrow the rakes and pitchforks, have out a different set of lads for two days running, and present us with the labour of the crowd in return for the lark he expects it to be for them.  Janet and Constance will supply the lunch.  Of course the amount of work the boys do isn’t to be reckoned on like that of trained hands.  But our ten acres of hay isn’t a tremendous crop, and with Jake Kelly and myself to boss the job, we ought to get through in respectable season, if the weather favours.”

“Do have them come.  Max is going to let Bob have his way at last, and leave the office, so he’ll be on hand, too.”

“Good!  Bob’s been on tenter-hooks all the week, I know, but I didn’t know old Max had given in.  Alec will be the next deserter from the ranks of the business men.  Max may hang on through this season and next, but you’ll see him with us the third, or I’ll sacrifice my hat.”  He surveyed the specimen in his hands as he spoke.  “Valuable offering it would make, wouldn’t it?  That hat began its career at a university and ends it on a farm.  In my present state of mind I don’t call that a come-down.”

“Don’t you?” asked a voice behind him, and Jarvis swung round to behold Janet Ferry, gloves and weeding instrument in hand.  “Then I suppose it’s not a come-down for my gloves, bought in Berlin, worn in London, and worn out in Sally’s service in a garden composed mostly of weeds.”

“Weeds!  Will you have the goodness to look at my sweet-peas?” Sally indignantly waved an earth-bestained hand toward the trellis, where three pink, one white, and one brilliant crimson blossom flaunted themselves in the July sunshine as the first blooms of the sweet-pea season.