"The very same," he replied, smiling. "Next time you pluck a bunch you will see that, though tiny, the flowers strangely resemble these." "And the lesser stitchwort?" "Yes?" he said, inquiringly. "Is it like this?" "Nearly the same, only the flowers are half the size." "And it grows where?" "In similar places--by hedges and ditches." "But you said something about time." "Yes," replied the Reverend Arthur, who was thinking how wondrous pleasant it would be to go on teaching botany to such a pupil for evermore. "Yes, it is a couple of months, say, later than the great stitchwort." "Ah!" said Helen, with a sigh. "By that time I shall be far away." The stitchwort fell to the ground, and they walked on together, with Helen, Circe-like, transforming the meek, studious, elderly man by her side, so that he was ready to obey her slightest whim, eagerly trying the while to explain each object upon which her eye seemed to rest; while she, glorying in her new power, led him on and on, with soft word, and glance, and sigh. They had been at least an hour in the garden when they reached the vinery, through whose open door came the sweet, inviting scent of the luxuriant tender growth. "What place is this?" she cried. "My vinery. May I show you in?" "It would give you so much trouble." "Trouble?" he said; and taking off his hat he drew back for her to enter. "And will all those running things bear grapes?" she asked, as, throwing back her head and displaying the soft contour of her beautifully moulded throat, she gazed up at the tendril-handed vines. "Yes," he said, dreamily, "these are the young bunches with berries scarcely set. You see they grow too fast. I have to break off large pieces to keep them back, and tie them to those wires overhead." "Oh, do show me, Mr Rosebury?" she cried, with childlike eagerness. "Yes," he said, smiling; "but I must climb up there." "What, on to that board?" "Yes, and tie them with this strong foreign grass." "Oh, how interesting! How beautiful!" she cried, her red lips parted, and showing the little regular white teeth within. "I never thought that grapes would grow like this. Please show me more." He climbed and sprawled awkwardly on to the great plank that reached from tie to tie, seating himself astride with the consequence that his trousers were dragged half way up his long, thin legs, revealing his clumsily-made garden shoes. In his eagerness to show his visitor the growing of his vines he heeded it not; but after snapping off a luxuriant shoot, he was about to tie the residue to a stout wire, when a cry of fear from Helen arrested him. "Oh, Mr Rosebury, pray, pray get down!" she cried. "It is not safe. I'm sure you'll fall!" "It is quite safe," he said, mildly; and he looked down with a bland smile at the anxious face below him. "Oh, no," she cried; "it cannot be." "I have tested it so many times," he said. "Pray do not be alarmed."