"Ay, geraniums for sure, and calcies, and lobelias, and a nice little hedge of pyrethrum. Can't do better than that, can yer? Geraniums in the centre,"--he drew a circle on the ground with the end of his stick, and prodded little holes here and there to illustrate his plan. "A nice patch of red, then comes yellar, then the blue, then the green. In circles or in rows, according as you please." "I seem to have seen it somewhere! I have certainly seen it," mused Peggy solemnly, so solemnly, that the poor man took her words in good faith, and looked at her with wondering pity. "I should say you 'ad! You couldn't travel far without seein' of 'em in the summer time. There's nuthin' else to see in a manner of speaking, for they all 'as 'em. 'Igh and low, gentle and simple." "Then I won't!" quoth Peggy unexpectedly. "Henceforth, Bevan, when sightseers come to the neighbourhood, send them up to Yew Hedge to inspect the one garden in England which does not go in for bedding-out! If I want fireworks, I'll have them in gunpowder on the fifth of November, but not in flowers if I know it! It's an insult to Nature to rule a garden in lines and transform a bed into a mathematical figure!" The old gardener looked at her more in sorrow than in anger, and shook his head dejectedly as he went back to his work. He had the gravest doubts about the sanity of a young lady who objected to "bedding-out;" but if Peggy gained no approval from him for her new-fangled notions, she reaped her reward in Rob's unaffected delight, when the conversation was detailed for his benefit. "Bravo, Mariquita!" he cried. "I recognise in you the instinct of the true gardener--a rare thing, let me tell you, to find in a woman. Women like show and colour, a big effect, rather than interesting detail, but I'm thankful to find you are an exception. Come over to-morrow and see _my_ garden! I keep a corner for myself at the end of the shrubbery, and forbid any of the men to touch it, and I flatter myself I have some treasures you won't find in any other garden in England. I brought them home from my travels, and have coaxed them to grow by looking after them myself and studying their little ways. They need a lot of care, and get sulky if they are not humoured, but it's the whole interest of gardening to master these little eccentricities."