Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of one of Lady Anne’s little boys, who came running eagerly up to his mother, to ask whether he might have “the sulphurs to show to Helena Delacour. I want to show her Vertumnus and Pomona, mamma,” said he. “Were not the cherries that the old gardener sent very good?” “What is this about the cherries and the old gardener, Charles?” said the young lady who sat beside Lady Anne: “come here and tell me the whole story.” “I will, but I should tell it you a great deal better another time,” said the boy, “because now Helena’s waiting for Vertumnus and Pomona.” “Go then to Helena,” said Lady Anne, “and I will tell the story for you.” Then turning to the young lady she began--“Once upon a time there lived an old gardener at Kensington; and this old gardener had an aloe, which was older than himself; for it was very near a hundred years of age, and it was just going to blossom, and the old gardener calculated how much he might make by showing his aloe, when it should be in full blow, to the generous public--and he calculated that he might make a 100l.; and with this 100l. he determined to do more than was ever done with a 100l. before: but, unluckily, as he was thus reckoning his blossoms before they were blown, he chanced to meet with a fair damsel, who ruined all his calculations.” “Ay, Mrs. Stanhope’s maid, was not it?” interrupted Mrs. Margaret Delacour. “A pretty damsel she was, and almost as good a politician as her mistress. Think of that jilt’s tricking this poor old fellow out of his aloe, and--oh, the meanness of Lady Delacour, to accept of that aloe for one of her extravagant entertainments!” “But I always understood that she paid fifty guineas for it,” said Lady Anne. “Whether she did or not,” said Mrs. Delacour, “her ladyship and Mrs. Stanhope between them were the ruin of this poor old man. He was taken in to marry that jade of a waiting-maid; she turned out just as you might expect from a pupil of Mrs. Stanhope’s--the match-making Mrs. Stanhope--you know, sir.” (Clarence Hervey changed colour.) “She turned out,” continued Mrs. Delacour, “every thing that was bad--ruined her husband--ran away from him--and left him a beggar.” “Poor man!” said Clarence Hervey.