Yet it was evident that his authority was everywhere in exercise. When cracks had appeared in the front of the house iron supports were placed underneath before it was repainted. The rooms were repapered--mine with pleasant pictures of cats and dogs--and the floors were mended where the boards had shrunken apart. Even the kitchen, where for years Mariette had been obstinately insisting on repairs, without producing any effect upon grandfather, who would invariably answer her with the old proverb, “One wastes one’s suds in washing a negro’s head”--even the kitchen was thoroughly repaired and paved with wonderful red bricks. The entrance gate which would not close had been repaired, and even provided with a key, a key which really turned in the lock! The linden was trimmed, permitting the sun-dial once more to mark the hours. The break in the wall, by which the mole-crickets used to penetrate, by which, one memorable evening, I had seen our enemies introducing themselves into the place, was closed by a balustrade, set into the trunk of the chestnut tree. And now too was seen what had never before been seen: the three labourers at their post, and--still more marvellous sight--all three working at once! Little by little the garden--my old garden that used to be a perfect forest of weeds, in which there was never an end to discovering new trees or plants--so well were they hidden--was transformed and reduced to order. The alleys were cleaned out and sanded, the beds remade and the rose bushes trimmed. The trees, reduced to their proper proportions, cast a well defined shade. A useless field became an orchard. A fountain, set in the heart of a grass plot, sent up a shaft of water to fall in a fine musical rain into its basin. There were flowers and fruits to gather for banquets and desserts. But we no longer dared to feel of the pears and peaches--still less to give to their stems that slight see-saw motion which made them fall. In the wide newly-opened space our larceny would have been discovered. And I vainly sought to lay low with my sword the underbrush that used to grow thick on the edge of the chestnut grove. Tem Bossette refused to whittle me out the smallest wooden sword, and watched over the stakes as if he had paid for them himself.