"Mebbe," said Brother William, placing his soft hat very carefully upon the rounded knob of his thistle staff, and standing it up in a corner of the room adjoining the kitchen. "Mebbe, Fanny, my lass; but I don't see what good it's going to do you reading 'bout dooks and lords a-marrying housemaids, as they don't never do--do they, Martha?" "I never knew of such a thing, Mr Cressy," said Martha in a quiet demure way. "I did once hear of a gentleman marrying his cook." "Yes," said Brother William solemnly, "I think I did hear of such a thing as that, and that might be sensible; but in them magazines they never marry the cooks--it's always the housemaids--and Fanny's getting her head full of such stuff." "You mind your own business, William, and let me mind mine, if you please," said the young lady warmly. "Oh, all right, my dear; only, I'm your brother, you know," said the young man, hitching himself more comfortably into his chair. "Got company, I see." "How did you know?" cried Fanny. "I was over at the station delivering my bit o' wheat, when Sir James come in with that Mr Prayle. I don't think much of him." "And pray, why not?" "Dunno. Seems too smooth and underhanded like. I didn't take to him when he come round my farm." "You're a very foolish, prejudiced fellow, William," said Fanny warmly; and she whisked herself out of the room. "That's what mother used to say," said Brother William, thoughtfully rubbing his broad palms to and fro along the polished arms of the chair. "She used to say: `Wilyum, my boy, thou'rt prejudiced;' and I s'pose I am. That sort o' thing is in a man's natur', and can only be bred out in time.--Is tea 'most ready, Martha Betts?" Martha replied by filling up the teapot, and proceeding to cut some bread and butter, of both of which refreshing kinds of nutriment Brother William partook largely upon the return of his sister, who soon after hurried away to attend to her duties, that being with her a busy night. Volume 1, Chapter IV. "JACK." To "unfig," with Sir James Scarlett, meant to thoroughly change his London garments for an easy suit of flannels, such as he used for boating and gardening, the latter pursuit being one of which he was passionately fond. He had begun by having a professed gardener, and ended by being his own head. For the sharp professed gardener seemed to be imbued with the idea that the grounds and glass-houses of the Rosery were his special property, out of whose abundance he grudgingly allowed his master a few cut flowers, an occasional cucumber, now and then a melon, and at times a bunch of grapes, and a nectarine or peach. But that regime had to come to an end. "Hang the fellow, Kitty!" cried Scarlett one day; "he bullies poor old Monnick, and snubs me, and I feel as if I were nobody but the paymaster. It won't do. What's the good of living in the country with such a garden as this, if one can't have abundance of fruit and flowers for one's friends?"