“You—­think I am to be trusted, miss?” he said more than once.  “You think it would be all right?  I wasn’t even second or third under Mr. Timson—­but—­if I say it as shouldn’t—­I never lost a chance of learning things.  I was just mad about it.  T’aint only Liliums—­Lord, I know ’em all, as if they were my own children born an’ bred—­shrubs, coniferas, herbaceous borders that bloom in succession.  My word! what you can do with just delphiniums an’ campanula an’ acquilegia an’ poppies, everyday things like them, that’ll grow in any cottage garden, an’ bulbs an’ annuals!  Roses, miss—­why, Mr. Timson had them in thickets—­an’ carpets—­an’ clambering over trees and tumbling over walls in sheets an’ torrents—­just know their ways an’ what they want, an’ they’ll grow in a riot.  But they want feeding—­feeding.  A rose is a gross feeder.  Feed a Glory deejon, and watch over him, an’ he’ll cover a housetop an’ give you two bloomings.”

“I have never lived in an English garden.  I should like to see this one at its best.”

Leaving her with salutes of abject gratitude, Kedgers moved away bewildered.  What man could believe it true?  At three or four yards’ distance he stopped and, turning, came back to touch his cap again.

“You understand, miss,” he said.  “I wasn’t even second or third under Mr. Timson.  I’m not deceiving you, am I, miss?”

“You are to be trusted,” said Miss Vanderpoel, “first because you love the things—­and next because of Timson.”

CHAPTER XXII

ONE OF MR. VANDERPOEL’S LETTERS

Mr. Germen, the secretary of the great Mr. Vanderpoel, in arranging the neat stacks of letters preparatory to his chief’s entrance to his private room each morning, knowing where each should be placed, understood that such as were addressed in Miss Vanderpoel’s hand would be read before anything else.  This had been the case even when she had just been placed in a French school, a tall, slim little girl, with immense demanding eyes, and a thick black plait of hair swinging between her straight, rather thin, shoulders.  Between other financial potentates and their little girls, Mr. Germen knew that the oddly confidential relation which existed between these two was unusual.  Her schoolgirl letters, it had been understood, should be given the first place on the stacks of envelopes each incoming ocean steamer brought in its mail bags.  Since the beginning of her visit to her sister, Lady Anstruthers, the exact dates of mail steamers seemed to be of increased importance.  Miss Vanderpoel evidently found much to write about.  Each steamer brought a full-looking envelope to be placed in a prominent position.