I wondered what people he meant, but feared to ask him for the moment, lest I might lose the chance of getting the favour I had set my heart on. “It is a very simple thing,” I said, “and need not take your time up. Mrs. Marker is longing to see your garden; and if she may come to-morrow afternoon, she will bring the young lady, and I can show them round. You need not stir a step, or even turn your head.” “It is quite enough to have one head turned. They may come, if they choose, but they must not bother me. Hand me the jar of tobacco, Kit, and be off to the books, instead of spooning.” My uncle might easily have taken a more ample and cordial view of the question; still I was pleased not to find him worse, and ordered our crock-boy on the Tuesday morning to fetch a little round while he ate his breakfast, and leave a note for Mrs Marker at the lodge of the Coldpepper grounds, near the dairy, which the housekeeper visited early. And then I went to gather, and basket a quarter of Keswick codlin and Quarantines. This occupied all the forenoon, and what with seeing that they were picked aright, and sorted into firsts and seconds, and fairly packed, with no rubbish at the bottom, into bushel-baskets, and yet presented smiling with their eyes upward to meet the gaze of the purchaser, the day went so fast that it was dinner-time, before I could sit down, and dwell upon my heart. Then at a reproachful glance from Selsey Bill, our orchard foreman, who had heard the church clock strike one, and felt it to the depths of his capable stomach, I set three fingers to my teeth, and blew the signal, which is so welcome to the men who have lived upon nothing but hope, ever since half-past eight o’clock. It is not to be denied, however, that I had taken pretty sharp advantage of being well mounted from time to time on the upper rungs of a ladder, which gave me command of the Halliford Road—the higher road, I mean, for the lower now was stopped and except to carts and carriages—in such a manner that none could come from that part of the world, without my knowledge. Seeing only a pedlar and some few women (highly interesting to themselves no doubt, but not concerning my state of mind), I went in to dine with Uncle Corny, and took care to eat none of his onions. “What cheeks you have got, Kit!” he cried with a laugh; “and it is not from eating too much dinner. You have stolen the colour of my Quarantines. Eat, boy, eat; or how will you pull through it? No more visits from young ladies, if you are to go off your head like this. You have put the new mustard-spoon into the salt. A pretty muddle, I’m afraid, among my apples.”