“Good morning! We both appear to be punctual people.” He was smiling, and looking at her attentively. “It was good of you to come up at once. I left it open. I think it would be a good idea if I took you over the whole place.” She answered his smile, losing a momentary shyness. “I should like to see everything. Do you know, Mr. Canterton, you have set me up on the high horse, and——” “Well?” “I don’t want to fall off. I have been having thrills of delightful dread.” “I know; just what a man feels before an exam., when he is pretty sure of himself.” “I don’t know that I am sure of myself.” “If you can paint other things as you painted that rose, I don’t think there is any need for you to worry.” The quiet assurance of his praise sent a shiver of exultation through her. What an encouraging and comforting person he was. He just intimated that he believed you could do a thing very well, and the thing itself seemed half done. “Then I’ll show you the whole place. I’m a bit of an egotist in my way.” “It’s only showing someone what you have created.” He took her everywhere, beginning with what he called “the administrative department.” She saw the great glass-houses, the stacks of bracken for packing, the piles of ash and chestnut stakes, the shed where three old men spent their time making big baskets and hampers, the rows and rows of frames, the packing and dispatch sheds, the seed room, the little laboratory, with its microscopes and microtome and shelves of bottles, the office where several clerks were constantly at work. Canterton was apologetic. “I have a craze for showing everything.” “It gives one insight. I like it.” “It won’t tire you?” “I think I am a very healthy young woman.” He looked at the fresh face, and at the lithe though fragile figure, and felt somehow that the June day had an indefinable perfume. “I should like to show you some of the young conifers.” They were wonderful trees with wonderful names, quaint, solemn, and diminutive, yet with all the dignity of forests patriarchs. They grew in groves and companies, showing all manner of colours, dense metallic greens, soft blues, golds, silvers, greys, green blacks, ambers. Each tree had beauties and characteristics of its own. They were diminutive models of a future maturity, solemn children that would be cedars, cypresses, junipers, pines and yews. They delighted Eve. “Oh, the little people, ready to grow up! I never knew there were such trees—and such colours.” He saw the same look in her eyes as he had seen in the rosery, the same tenderness about the mouth. “I walk about here sometimes and wonder where they will all go to.” “Yes, isn’t it strange.” “Some day I want to do a book on trees.” “Do you? What’s the name of that dear Japanese-looking infant there?” “Retinospora Densa. You know, we nurserymen and some of the botanists quarrel about names.” “What does it matter? I tried to study botany, but the jargon——”