To-day, however, there was no one in the garden but John Simms and Anne himself; and John Simms, though amenable and ready to reply when addressed, never bothered him with tiresome questions, as strangers were apt to do, nor exercised an undue control over the dispositions of his game, like Elspeth. He was a person of intermittent spasms of labour, alternating with intervals of reflection, during which he scratched his head, and silently watched whatever was going forward--in this case Anne-Hilarion busily conveying to and fro minute quantities of dead leaves, under the impression that he was helping him. Accustomed to these periods of inaction, Anne, as he passed the clump of laurels on the other side of which John Simms was at the moment working--or meditating, as the case might be--would have paid no attention to the cessation of the sound of the broom, had he not just then heard the gardener thus deliver himself to some person or persons unknown: "The Markis dee Flavinny, the French gentleman? Why, Mam, he lives over there, just by where Cap'n Nelson used to live. But the 'ouse ain't the Markis's, though, 'tis the old gentleman's, Mr. Elphinstone's. And as it 'appens, the Markis's little boy's here in the garden along o' me at this very minute--him with the gal's name, Master Anne." Taking this as a summons, Anne-Hilarion at that came round the laurel bush, his horse and cart behind him, to find that John Simms' questioner was a lady in deep mourning, with a long veil. "This 'ere's the Markis dee Flavinny's little boy, Mam." Anne could not remove his hat, as he had been taught to do in the presence of ladies, since he was already bareheaded. "Did you wish to see my Papa, Madame?" he inquired rather diffidently. "Because he is ill. . . ." The lady had never taken her eyes off him since he first appeared. Even through the veil, Anne thought she was very beautiful. "I should like to talk to you a little first," she said, in a sweet voice, speaking French. "Shall we go and sit on that seat over there?" They went over to it, and she sat down; but Anne, still a trifle doubtful, stood in front of her clutching the string of his horse. "And what have you in your cart?" inquired the lady, putting back her veil. "Leaves," replied the little boy. "I fetch them from _there_, and I empty them out _there_. It is to help John Simms, but it takes a long time." A pause, and then the visitor observed, "Did you say that your father was ill, Anne?" The child nodded. "He was wounded over there in France, at Qui--Quiberon, Madame. He has been very ill, but he is going to get better now." "And is----" began the lady, and then seemed to change her mind about what she was going to say. "I suppose he had friends who went to Quiberon too?" she suggested.