Is it not true that our generation swears almost as hard as any? And yet it will not allow a writer to hint the truth in the matter. Of course we should do it sparingly, and with due reluctance. But, unless all tales are written for women, and are so to be accepted, it is a weak attempt at imposture on our sons and grandsons to suppress entirely in our pictures any presence not indecent, however unbecoming. Mr. Garnet was a Christian of the most advanced intelligence, so far as our ideas at the present time extend. He felt the beauty and perfection of the type which is set before us. He never sneered, as some of us do, at things which were too large for him, neither did he clip them to the shape of his own œsophagus. Only in practice, like the rest of us, he was sadly centrifugal. Now with his nostrils widely open, and great eyes on the ground, he was pacing rapidly up and down his sheltered kitchen garden. Every square was in perfect order, every tree in its proper compass, all the edging curt and keen. The ground was cropped with that trim luxuriance which we never see except under first–rate management. All the coleworts for the winter, all the wellearthed celery, all the buttoning Brussels sprouts, salsify just fit to dig, turnips lifting whitely forth (as some ladies love to show themselves), modest savoys just hearting in and saying “no” to the dew–beads, prickly spinach daily widening the clipped arrowhead—they all had room to eat and drink, and no man grudged his neighbour; yet Puck himself could not have skipped through with dry feet during a hoar–frost. As for weeds, Bull Garnet—well, I must not say what he _would_ have done. Suddenly a small, spare man turned the corner upon him, where a hedge of hornbeam, trimmed and dressed as if with a pocket–comb, broke the south–western violence. Most men would have shown their hats above the narrow spine, but Rufus Hutton was very short, and seldom carried a chimney–pot. “Sir, what can I do for you”? said Mr. Garnet, much surprised, but never taken aback. “Excuse me, sir, but I called at your house, and came this way to find you. You know me well, by name, I believe; as I have the pleasure of knowing you. Rufus Hutton; ahem, sir! Delightful occupation! I, too, am a gardener. ‘Dumelow Seedling’, I flatter myself. Know them well by the eye, sir. But what a difference the soil makes! Ah, yes, let them hang till the frost comes. What a plague we have had with earwigs! Get into the seat of the fruit; now just let me show you. Ah, you beggars, there you are. Never take them by the head, sir, or theyʼd nip my fingers. Take them under the abdomen, and they havenʼt room to twist upon you. There, now; what can he do”? “Not even thank you, sir, for killing him. And now what can I do for you”?