'Rather stupid of us not to have thought of doing something to it before,--it's more than four months since papa bought it; but, to be sure, the weather has not been fit for out-of-door work, and papa always talked as if it would take two or three men to put it in order. I don't think he'll mind our having a try at it, for at any rate we can't do much harm. I'm very glad he bought it: it would have been horrid to have had it let on a building lease, and some great house run up that would shut out the view from our windows, that mamma likes so much. It's nice that her own room does not overlook this, or she'd see what we are about, and I should like it to be a surprise to her. It's quite Willie's idea; he's a capital chap for thinking of things to please her. I wish that funny fellow Lackland had half as much sense.' Willie came back very soon with the string, and assisted his brother in fastening a stake in the ground where the path was to begin, and then, tying the string to it, drew it along in a straight line to the place where the path was to end, at which they stuck in another stake, and again fastened the string. Johnnie did not reappear for some time, and then wore an air of rather droll vexation. 'Pity me,' he exclaimed as he gave the spades to Honorius, 'I have fallen foul of my paternal relative. I found a lot of birds in the arbour, and served them with a notice to quit by clapping my hands and hooting to them, when who should appear but papa, asking what the noise was about, and how I could be so inconsiderate as to disturb mamma?' 'No wonder,' said Honorius. 'Oh, and I promised to keep you quiet!' exclaimed Willie in great distress. Jean-sans-terre laughed his merriest of laughs. 'Keep me quiet! you silly fellow. Did you really think it possible?' 'Yes, for mamma's sake,' said Willie stoutly. 'You can be quiet if you choose; and I told you what she said about her wanting you to sit with her this afternoon.' 'And you think paterfamilias will forbid it on account of my ill-timed sparrow-hooting?' 'I think,' said Honorius, 'you had better speak of my father by his right name, and endeavour to behave rather less like an idiot. Here, take a spade, man, and come to work.' Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, made an indescribable grimace, and began digging vigorously, humming the Jacobite ditty, 'Wha is it noo we ha'e gotten for a king, But a wee wee German lairdie? And when we went to fetch him hame, He was dibbling in his kail-yairdie.' Honorius sketched in his pocket-book a sort of plan of what the desert was to be like when its cultivation was completed. There was to be a path crossing it each way exactly through the centre, and along each side of these paths there was to be a broad flower-border, which would partially conceal from view the potatoes and other useful vegetables which were to occupy the chief part of the ground.