“Well, thinks I, I’ll go to Meriky and see me Johnny, me youngest; most loike they’re more used to the shlapin’ spells out there where all is free; but they wasn’t!  Johnny’s a sheriff and got money wid his woman, and she’s no place in her house fit fer the old man resting the drap off.  So he gives me money to go home first class, and says he’ll sind another bit along to Kathy fer me keepin’.

“This was come Easter, and bad cess, one o’ me shlapes was due, and so I’ve footed it to get a job to take me back to Kathy.  If I could strike a port just right, Hiven might get me home between times in a cattle boat.

“I’m that well risted now I could do good work if I had full feed, maybe till Michaelmas.  Hiven rest ye, sor, but have ye ever a job o’ garden work now on yer estate, sor, that would kape me until I got the bit to cross to Kathy?”

As Bart hesitated, I burst forth, “Have you ever tended flowers, Larry?”

“Flowers, me leddy?—­that’s what I did fer his Riverence, indoors and out, and dressed them fer the shows, mem, and not few’s the prize money we took.  His Riverence, he called a rose for Kathy, that is to say Kathleen; ’twas that big ’twould hide yer face.  Flowers, is it?  Well, I don’t know!”

Bart, meanwhile, had made a plan, telling Larry that he would draw a cup of tea and give him something to eat, while he thought the matter over.  He soon had the poor fellow wrapped in an old blanket and snoring comfortably in the straw, while, as the rain had stopped and dawn began to show the outlines of Opal Farm, Bart suggested that I had best go indoors and finish my broken sleep, while he had a chance to scrutinize Larry by daylight before committing himself.

When he rejoined me several hours later for an indoor breakfast, for it had turned to rain again and promised several days of the saturate weather that makes even a mountain camp utterly dreary, he brought me the news that Larry was to work for me especially, beginning on the rose bed,—­that he would lodge with Amos Opie and take his meals with Anastasia, who thinks it likely that they are cousins on the mothers’ side, as they are both of the same parish and name.  The exact way of our meeting with him need not be dwelt upon domestically, for the sake of discipline, as he will have more self-respect among his fellows in the combination clothes we provided, “until his baggage arrives.”  He is to be paid no money, and allowed to “shlape” if a spell unhappily arrives.  When the season is over, Bart agrees to see him on board ship with a prepaid passage straight to Kathy, and whatever else is his due sent to her!  Meanwhile he promised to “fit the leddy with the tastiest garden off the old sod!”

So here we are!

This chronicle should have a penny-dreadful title, “Their Midnight Adventure, or How it Rained a Rose Gardener!” Tell me about the ferns next time; we have only moved the glossy Christmas and evergreen-crested wood ferns as yet, being sure of these.