Major Parrifer had been suffering from a slight temporary indisposition. He did not consider himself sufficiently recovered to attend service, but neither was he ill enough to lie in bed. With the departure of his family for church, the Major had come strolling out in the garden in an airy dressing-gown, and there saw his gardener picking peas. "Halloa, Hotty! This ought to have been done before." "Yes, sir, I know it; I'm a little late," answered Hotty; "I shall have done in two or three minutes. The cook makes a fuss if I pick 'em too early; she says they don't eat so well." The peas were for the gratification of the Major's own palate, so he found no more fault. Hotty went on with his work, and the Major gave a general look round. On a near wall, at right angles with the hedge through which Reed was then peering, some fine apricots were growing, green yet. "These apricots want thinning, Hotty," observed the Major. "I have thinned 'em some, sir." "Not enough. Our apricots were not as fine last year as they ought to have been. I said then they had not had sufficient room to grow. Green apricots are always useful; they make the best tart known." Major Parrifer walked to the greenhouse, outside which a small basket was hanging, brought it back, and began to pick some of the apricots where they looked too thick. Reed, outside, watched the process--not alone. As luck had it, a man appeared on the field-path, who proved to be Gruff Blossom, the Jacobsons' groom, coming home to spend Sunday with his friends. Reed made a sign to Blossom to be silent, and caused him to look on also. With the small basket half full, the Major desisted, thinking possibly he had plucked enough, and turned away carrying it. Hotty came out from the peas, his task finished. They strolled slowly down the path by the hedge; the Major first, Hotty a step behind, talking about late and early peas, and whether Prussian blues or marrowfats were the best eating. "Do you see those weeds in the onion-bed?" suddenly asked the Major, stopping as they were passing it. Hotty turned his head to look. A few weeds certainly had sprung up. He'd attend to it on the morrow, he told his master; and then said something about the work accumulating almost beyond him, since the under-gardener had been at home ill. "Pick them out now," said the Major; "there's not a dozen of them." Hotty stooped to do as he was bid. The Major made no more ado but stooped also, uprooting quite half the weeds himself. Not much more, in all, than the dozen he had spoken of: and then they went on with their baskets to the house. Never had George Reed experienced so much gratification since the day he came out of prison. "Did you see the Major at it?--thinning his apricots and pulling up his weeds?" he asked of Gruff Blossom. And Blossom's reply, gruff as usual, was to ask what might be supposed to ail his eyes that he shouldn't see it. "Very good," said Reed.