Poor James Scarlett's garden was in fair condition, but far from being at its best. It was well attended to, but the guiding spirit was to some extent absent; and as Jack Scales walked down it one soft moist morning, feeling in anything but good spirits at the ill success that had attended his efforts, he began to think a good deal about quaint, acid-voiced Aunt Sophia, with her sharp manner, disposition to snub, and general harshness to those around. "Poor old girl!" he said. "She has settled herself down here, where I believe she does not want to stay; and I know it is to play propriety, and for the benefit of her nephew. It was too bad to speak to her as I did, but I was out of temper with her fidgeting about me. Let me see; what did I call her? a vexatious, meddling old maid. Poor old girl! How it does seem to sting a woman of that kind. Old maid. Too bad. I suppose the woman never existed yet who did not in her early days wish to wed. They all swear they never did, and that if the opportunity had come, they would have refused it with scorn; but human nature's human nature, especially female human nature; and it's woman's vocation in life to marry, be a mother, and bring up her young to replenish the earth. If it is not, I've never studied humanity in sickness and in health. Oh, it's plain enough," he went on; "there are all the natural yearnings in her youth for one to love; and the tender affection, patience, and intense passion for her young, for whom she will work and starve and die, are all in her, like so many seeds waiting to shoot and bring forth flowers--beautiful flowers. But, as it too often happens, those flowers never blossom, for the seeds have no chance to grow; and the consequence of this unnatural life is that, a woman grows up soured--disappointed--withered as it were. Often enough she is ignorant of the unnatural state of her life, but it is unnatural all the same. Then we have the acid ways, the sharp disappointed looks, the effects, in short, of the withering up of all their beautiful God-given yearnings for that most sublime of nature's gifts--motherhood; and we thoughtless fools sneer at unmarried women, and call them old maids. Hah!" he ejaculated; "it's too bad. I'll beg the old lady's pardon the first time we meet." Jack Scales's meeting with Aunt Sophia came sooner than he expected, for, turning down one of the walks, he heard a rustling noise before him, and directly after a grim smile crossed his face as he saw, a short distance in front, the figure of Aunt Sophia, while at her feet were a pair of gardening gloves, and a basket filled with the weeds and dead leaves that she had been gathering.