“Well, you are right, but you can do it so much better than I. Deacon White has probably known Mr. Judd ever since he was a little boy, and he would be glad of an opportunity to tell what he knows and give us all the town talk besides. I do wish you would just start him off.” “Start him off! On what? Judd’s private history? On the delicate matters he doesn’t wish advertised?” “No, no! Of course not, papa! How unpleasant you are! I only want him to throw some light on the mysterious things Mr. Fettiplace alluded to.” “I shall do nothing of the kind. If you really have a thirst for that sort of knowledge, get a copy of Hans Andersen. He has a better style than Deacon White.” A few moments later, when Molly and the Deacon were alone in the old garden, her desire for information was gratified to an unhoped-for extent, and the information was of a more detailed and astonishing character than she would have presumed to ask for. The Deacon, a little, round-shouldered, narrow-chested man of seventy, with a sun-dried face, an enormous nose, and a long receding chin with a white beard beneath, possessed a pair of wide-awake eyes that seemed many years younger than himself. “I never have anything to do with roses without thinkin’ of Amos. Did you ever notice his?” “Yes; they are splendid ones.” “Ain’t they! Well, one mornin’, when he was a little boy, I was helpin’ him set out roses along the side of the house where the big trellis is, and he said he wanted red ones, not yellow ones. I said: ‘These are red ones. They are cut from the same slip as the others, and they’ve got to be red whether they want to or not.’ Pretty soon Josiah came out, and Amos said to him that he could see ’em next spring and they would all be yellow. And what took me all aback was that Josiah believed it, and tried to persuade him that he might like yellow ones for a change. And I tell you,” said the Deacon, as he fixed his little young eyes on her face to watch his effect, “I just stood with my mouth open one mornin’, a year after, when I saw those roses, that oughter been red, just come out into a yeller. Of course it was a mistake in the bushes, but how did he know?” “It might have been a coincidence.”