He would do his best to learn the names of the wild flowers he picked for me--with uncomfortably short stalks!--but, beyond being at last able to name a dandelion or buttercup at sight, he did not shine in any branch of botany. "What did you call this fine plant?" he would ask with a glimmer of fun in his eyes. "It is not a plant you have, but a single flower branch, and it is called a king-cup--picked much too short!" I would answer severely, and he laughed as he tumbled his trophies into my lap and insisted that the ferns ruthlessly dug and cut out with his pocket-knife would grow all right, in spite of their denuded roots, if I "made them do it, in the greenhouse!" When it was too wet to go out, or if he was not well, he used to amuse himself at home in my sitting-room practising shooting with an air-gun. He used a lighted candle for target, and became so expert in putting out the light this way that it became too troublesome to light the candle so often, and we substituted other targets. Sometimes he would go to the farther end of my aunt's park, where there was a pond basin, dried up long before, {208} and many happy hours were spent there, shooting in turn, with his revolvers. I remember on one Sunday afternoon my aunt's bailiff came down, having heard revolver shots, though the sound was deadened by the high banks. The bailiff was much perturbed by our Sunday sport, chiefly because it was Sunday. He did not dare press his opinion upon me, as he knew my position in my aunt's household was impregnable, but he had always been jealous of my coming to Eltham, where he had served her for over forty years, and he was now so plainly antagonistic that Mr. Parnell, who did not particularly wish his presence with me talked about, rose to the occasion with the tact he could exert when he considered it worth while. "Oh, is that you, Mr. ----?" rising from an absorbed examination of his last bull's-eye. "Mrs. O'Shea was telling me when we started this match of your being such a good shot with a gun. Do have a shot with my revolver; see here, I've got a bull's-eye five times running against Mrs. O'Shea's one. Now let us see what you can do." Mr. ---- hesitated; he was a fine shot and had won prizes in his youth, and was susceptible to flattery. Mr. Parnell said dryly: "I don't suppose you have had so much practice as I lately, but--" The bailiff turned a wary eye on his wife, who was waiting for him at the gate of a rookery some way off, and Mr. Parnell smiled as he said: "The lady will not see you," in such a gently sarcastic manner that Mr. ---- was nettled, and picking up the revolver shot so wildly that he missed the little target altogether.