“But, pardon me, ma’am, there are many things he could never do.”
“Then Barnett must do them, and I shall make a change for poor John Grange’s sake: I shall give up showy flowers and grow all kinds that shed perfume. That will do. It is impossible for Grange to be head-gardener, but he will retain his old position, and you may tell Barnett that Grange is to do exactly what he feels is suitable to him. He is not to be interfered with in any way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the bailiff respectfully.
“If he is so wonderful now, I don’t know what he will be in a few months. Now, you understand: John Grange is to continue in his work as if nothing had happened, and— you here?”
For at that moment two hands busy tying up some loose strands of a Bougainvillea dropped to their owner’s side, and poor John Grange, who had come up to the window unheard, uttered a low cry as he stood with his head bent forward and hands half extended toward the speaker.
“Mrs Mostyn—dear mistress,” he faltered, “Heaven bless you for those words!”
“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, John Grange,” she said softly, as she laid her hand upon one of those extended toward her as if to reach light in darkness; “should not His servants strive to follow that which they are taught?”
The blank, bright eyes gazed wildly toward her, and then the head was bowed down over the hand which was touched by two quivering lips, as reverently as if it had been that of a queen.
Five minutes later James Ellis was on his way back to the gardens, thinking it was time that Mary went away from home to begin life as a governess, or as attendant to some invalid dame.