"I think your picture ought to be taken, just as you look now, Mr. John." He thought _hers_ ought to be: the bright fair face, the laughing blue eyes, the parted lips and the pretty white teeth presented a picture that, to him, had never had its equal. "Do you, Miss Jessy? That's a fine rose," he shyly added. He was always shy with her. She held it out. She had not the least objection to be admired, even by John Drench in an unpresentable state. In their hearts, women have all desired men's flattery, from Eve downwards. "These large roses are the sweetest of any," she went on. "I plucked it from the tree beyond the grass-plat." "You are fond of flowers, I've noticed, Miss Jessy." "Yes, I am. Both for themselves and for the language they symbolise." "What language is it?" "Don't you know? I learnt it at school. Each flower possesses its own meaning, Mr. John Drench. This, the rose, is true love." "True love, is it, Miss Jessy!" She was lightly flirting it before his face. It was too much for him, and he took it gently from her. "Will you give it me?" he asked below his breath. "Oh, with great pleasure." And then she lightly added, as if to damp the eager look on his face: "There are plenty more on the same tree." "An emblem of true love," he softly repeated. "It's a pretty thought. I wonder who invented----" "Now then, John Drench, do you know that tea's waiting. Are you going to sit down in those muddy boots and leggings?" The sharp words came from Susan Page. Jessy turned and saw her sister's pale, angry face. John Drench disappeared, and Miss Susan went out again, and banged the door. "It is high time Jessy was put to some regular employment," cried Susan, bursting into the room where Miss Page sat making the tea. "She idles away her time in the most frivolous and wasteful manner, never doing an earthly thing. It is quite sinful." "So it is," acquiesced Miss Page. "Have you a headache, Susan? You look pale." "Never mind my looks," wrathfully retorted Susan. "We will portion out some share of work for her from to-day. She might make up the butter, and undertake the pies and puddings, and do the plain sewing." William Page, a grey-haired man, sitting with a stick by his side, looked up. "Pretty creature!" he said, for he passionately loved his youngest daughter. "I'll not have her hard-worked, Susan." "But you'd not have her sit with her hands before her from Monday morning till Saturday night, I suppose, father!" sharply returned Miss Susan. "She'll soon be nineteen." "No, no; idleness brings nothing but evil in its train. I didn't mean that, Susan. Let the child do what is suitable for her. Where's John Drench?" "In a fine mess--up to his middle in mud," was Miss Susan's tart answer. "One would think he had been trying to see how great an object he could make of himself."