Hamilton was discovered in the garden, leaning with folded arms over the back of a seat, looking gloomily at the bare rose-bushes. "Good afternoon, Ma'am, good afternoon sir," he said straightening up as Mrs. Greene and Roger approached. "This is a real untidy wind." He frowned disapprovingly and relapsed again into brooding silence. Roger looking at the melancholy face above the white shirt with its dotted blue stripe and stiff white collar wondered if Mrs. Hamilton's tongue was the cause of so much sorrow, or if pessimism as well as placidity was inherent in the tribe of gardeners. "I wanted to have a chat with you about Parks," Mrs. Greene was saying. "Do you feel quite satisfied with him, Hamilton?" "He does his work well and thoroughly," answered Hamilton cautiously. "But apart from that?" questioned Mrs. Greene. Hamilton took off his cap and gently scratched his head before replying. Presently he replaced the cap and pronounced heavily: "The flowers don't like him, Ma'am." "That's what I was afraid of," said Mrs. Greene, "I don't think they grow for him." Roger felt amazed. I have an awful lot to learn, he thought; I never realised that flowers only grew for people they liked. I expect Hamilton will heartily despise me. On an impulse of propitiation he ventured to remark: "Surely it's very surprising that flowers should grow for one person and not another in the same garden, under the same conditions." Hamilton smiled pityingly and addressed Mrs. Greene. "It's well seen that Mr. Dodds is not a countryman," he said. Then turning to Roger he added, "Plants are like children, sir; they need handling. Ignorant persons or persons who don't care enough about them can't handle them proper." Roger was crushed, and at the same time stimulated at the thought of what lay before him. The immediate future was depressing. He visualised the grimy badly-lit third-class carriage, the inexplicable delays characteristic of Sunday trains, the depressing arrival at Victoria. But soon there would be no Sunday journeys; he would come to Lynton to stay. A poignant sorrow filled him at the thought that Aunt Sarah would not be there to enjoy it with him; but her calmness, her air of acceptance, had been infectious. Roger felt, as she did, that regrets would be out of place; that the rounding-off of her life, so nearly complete, was merely an incident in the continuity of Lynton. She was still talking about Parks and his successor. "We'll tell him to look around, then, for a month or two; there's no immediate hurry, though I'd like it settled soon. And in the meantime I'll ask Lady Langton about that man of hers who's leaving her." "Parks'll be sorry to leave," said Hamilton slowly. "People get attached to Lynton. There's something about the place." "There is," answered Mrs. Greene, "there certainly is. Well, we must get back to the house now. Mr. Dodds is going up to town this evening."