“We must go on with it this evening. I am sure that I shall like it so much.”
When, however, the evening came, Annie remembered that her garden must be watered, for she had neglected this of late; so she asked Mat to come and help her to carry the buckets, saying,—
“If you will fill the buckets at the water-hole, and then carry them across the paddock to those trees—that is where my garden is—I will walk on first, for I do not suppose that there are any bushrangers about now.”
Mat had often passed this garden, with its hedge of prickly “Osage orange,” but had never penetrated through the little gate.
He soon filled his buckets, and was by Annie’s side, in her garden, waiting for orders.
She pointed out those shrubs and flowers which were specially thirsty subjects, and told him the names of many of the plants.
“These many-coloured flowers are Balsams; that great bush, with its deep red flowers, is a Bouganvillia; and the creeper joining it, over the summer-house, with its bunches of waxy flowers, is called Stephanotis; it scents the whole garden at night.”
“I know the smell of that,” said Mat, “if I do not know the name, for you had a nosegay of it when I saw you in Sydney.”
“Yes, I had, and I wear it at all the balls and parties I go to. It is my favourite flower.”
Our hero watered everything he was told to, and a good many dead sticks and cuttings that he was not told to. When they had finished, he asked Annie whether they should come again the next evening to water; also whether he might look after her garden a bit, for that it was “terrible” weedy.