The garden at the Parsonage was a great joy, with its thick hedge of fuchsias, and its beds of fragrant wallflowers, and its standard roses growing among the grass, and its clumps of Czar violets under the sheltered wall. Here Winnie toiled early and late, getting up sometimes with the sun that she might put in an hour's work before breakfast, weeding, replanting, pruning, raking, and tying up. It was chiefly owing to her exertions that the show of flowers was so good, though Gwen was her ally in that respect, and even Lesbia gave a little desultory help. There was a thick, bowery lime tree under whose shade it was delightful to have tea in summer, or to lie reading books on hot Sundays; and there was a fascinating corner of the old wall, which the girls called "the rampart", from whence it was possible to command an excellent view of the main road--a great convenience sometimes to the younger ones, who would keep watch, and beat a hasty retreat if they saw an unwelcome visitor arriving, leaving Beatrice to offer hospitality alone. Gwen was the worst sinner in this respect. She was bashful, and hated to have to say "How do you do?" to callers. In spite of Beatrice's efforts to train her in social ways, she would fly at the very approach of a flower-trimmed hat or a white parasol. "You scuttle off like a rabbit into its burrow," said Beatrice indignantly on one occasion; "and if you're caught, you behave in such a silly, awkward way that I'm ashamed of you. People will think you haven't been properly brought up, and blame me. It's not my fault that you've got no manners." "I feel as if I don't know where to look when people speak to me, and as if my hands and feet were too big," protested Gwen. "I can't help shuffling and wrinkling up my forehead--I can't indeed! You're awfully hard on me, Bee!" "Perhaps she'll grow a little more accustomed to her hands and feet when she's older," suggested Winnie, the peacemaker. "They're useful for catching chickens at present, and that ought to be enough for you, Win," laughed Gwen. "You'd have lost those white Leghorns if I hadn't rescued them."