Then she blushed because she fancied that Mr. Vibart might suppose that she had called out the address so loudly for his benefit. She did not look round again, therefore, but watched the orange postilion jogging up and down in front, and the street lamps coming out one by one as the lamp-lighters went by with their long poles. _Chapter Two_ The origin of the house of Grant, like that of many another Scots family, is lost in the Scotch mists of antiquity. The particularly thick mist that obscured the origin of that branch of the family to which Jasmine belonged did not disperse until early in the nineteenth century, when the figure of James Grant, who began life nebulously as an under-gardener in the establishment of the sixth Duke of Ayr, emerged well-defined as a florist and nursery gardener in the Royal Borough of Kensington. The rhetorical questioning of the claims of aristocracy implied in the couplet: _When Adam delved, and Eve span_ _Who was then the gentleman?_ was peculiarly appropriate to this branch, for Jamie, besides being a gardener himself, married the daughter of a Lancashire weaver called Jukes, who later on invented a loom and, what is more, profited by his talent. Although Jamie Grant's rapid rise was helped by the success of old Mr. Jukes' invention, he had enough talent of his own to take full advantage of the capital that his wife brought him on the death of her father; in fact by the year 1837 Jamie was as reputable as any florist in the United Kingdom. A legend in the family said that on the fine June morning when Archbishop Howley and Lord Chamberlain Conyngham rode from the death-bed of William IV at Windsor to announce to the little Princess in Kensington Palace her accession, the Archbishop begged a bunch of sweet peas for his royal mistress from old Jamie whose garden was close to the highway. If legend lied, then so did Jamie's son Andrew, who always declared that he was an eye-witness of the incident, and indeed ascribed to it his own successful career. Inasmuch as Andrew Grant died in the dignity of Lord Bishop Suffragan of Clapham, there is no reason to suppose that he was not speaking the truth. According to him the incident did not stop with the impulse of the loyal Archbishop to stand well with his queen on that sunny morning in June, but a few days later was turned into an event by Jamie's sending his son with another bunch of sweet peas to Lambeth Palace and asking his Grace to stand godfather to a splendid purple variety he had just raised. In these days when sweet peas that do not resemble the underclothing of cocottes without the scent are despised, the robust and strong-scented magenta _Archbishop Howley_ no longer figures in catalogues; but at this period it was the finest sweet pea on the market. The Archbishop, who was a snob of the first water, liked the compliment; yes, and, anti-papist though he was, he did not object to the suggestion of episcopal violet in the dedication.