I got up next morning directly I was called, and was downstairs long before anybody else--but I was glad of that, for I wanted to explore the garden. It was a beautiful, warm, bright morning, and I rejoiced, for it would bring the people to Geldham Church for the harvest-thanksgiving. I went over the lawn, and down the alleys, and round and round the flower-beds, and peeped into the greenhouses, and tried to see through the steaming glass of the hot-houses, which were locked, when, suddenly, turning round one of them, I came face to face with Tom Parkes in his Sunday clothes, with a key in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other. He was evidently disconcerted, and tried by turning to the door of the hot-house to avoid me. But I accosted him at once. “Tom--Tom Parkes, don’t you know me--Miss Christie?” I said. “Lor’, yes, miss, to be sure, so it is! Who’d ’a’ thought o’ seeing you here?” said he, touching his hat with rather awkward surprise. “Why, you must have known me, Tom! You looked as if you had seen a ghost!” “Well, the truth is, miss, asking your pardon,” said Tom sheepishly, “that I didn’t want you to see me. You see, I’ve been took on here as extry under-gardener and help, and the head-gardener he don’t like Londoners, and I don’t want him to know as I’m a London chap. So, if you would be ser good, miss, as not to mention as you’ve seen me before, I should take it kind.” “Very well, Tom, I won’t betray you,” I replied, laughing. And he said, “Thank you, miss,” and touched his hat again, and went off with his eggs. I was very much amused by this encounter and the important secret I had to keep. As if my mentioning that I had seen Tom at the Alders would necessarily entail the awful discovery that he was a Londoner! By this time I thought I had better go in and see if any of the other people had come down to breakfast; and I was sauntering along, when, as I got near the house, I heard two men’s voices. “Bella is getting jealous, Tom.” A grunt in the other voice. “I say, ain’t it rough on the little one?” Then I heard Lady Mills’s voice, and when I got to the door there were eight or ten people already assembled. But the two nearest the door, whom I had overheard, were a gentleman named Cole and Mr. Carruthers. It was Mr. Carruthers who had grunted. Who was “Bella”? And who was “the little one”? And what did “rough on” mean? The bells of Denham Church, which was close by, had begun to ring before breakfast was over, and Lady Mills wanted to know who was going. “I am going, for one,” said Mrs. Clowes, and she looked across at Mr. Carruthers, who was helping himself to a great deal of marmalade.