[Illustration: FRED LISTENED ATTENTIVELY.] "Ah, Mrs. Betty, that won't do!" he said. "'Tis nine years, or more, since I crept up to the door, half frozen and half starved, and asked you to come to—to Frank. I remember all, Betty dear, though I never could talk of it. Ever since then, you've kept me and cared for me, and nursed me and borne with me, and—loved me. And now, doctor, she's not as strong as she used to be, she couldn't live alone now, she couldn't keep up the garden or the plants and slips without help, and she couldn't carry the things home. I earn a little money, too, and what I earn is needed now. I'm very grateful for your kind offer, but I can't leave her, and if I did, every one would cry shame on me, and I should deserve it." "Fred, I won't stand in your way. I shall do very well. I'll get my grandchild, John's little Kate, to come and stay with me; I know they'll let me have her. And suppose your own people find you by-and-by, won't they be glad to find you something better than a working gardener? No, no, boy; you must go." Fred stood, looking far away over the fields. He seemed to be trying to put some thought into words, for his lips moved from time to time. At last, without looking at them, but still gazing away over the fields, he said— "I can remember her face. It was like Frank's, fair and loving. I think we were well off once, but I don't remember. I seem just going to remember sometimes, but it all dies off. Mrs. Betty, you know Kate is only ten, and a little baby of a thing; even if she came, she could not do all that I do, and the garden would run waste, and there would be no earnings coming in. And if my mother—if it is my mother that I remember—I'm very sure that she would be more sorry to find me an ungrateful brute than to find me a gardener, or anything else. No, Dr. Wentworth, I cannot leave Mrs. Betty. As she cared for me, so must I care for her now, and she has been a mother to me all these years. But I'm not ungrateful to you, sir, and there is nothing I should like better than to learn from you if it could be; but it cannot." "I would not say another word, my boy, if I did not see a way out of the difficulty. I like you the better for being grateful and faithful to Betty, and I was not aware how dependent she has become upon you. But I'll tell you how it can be managed. Instead of coming to live with me, and studying hard, you must go on living here, and only give me so many hours a day, say from ten a.m. to six in the evening. This will give you time for your gardening under Betty, and your wages will be better than your chance earnings now. What do you say to this?" "May I just run home for a few moments at about one, sir, to see that she gets her dinner?" "It is not far; yes, we will manage that. You shall have your dinner at our luncheon-time, which will save Betty a good deal of cooking." "Mrs. Betty, does this suit you?"