When she caught sight of him Margery left the others and ran towards him. "Daddy! daddy! come and look at my garden. Bella says she thinks my daisy has taken root! Now it'll soon have lots of daisies on it, won't it? and I'll give you a piece of root. Wouldn't you like that? Daddy, won't you have a garden too, and have flowers in it?"
"Why, all the garden is father's," cried Charlie, laughing at her, and with one accord they all turned and looked over the garden which was 'all father's,' and the untidiness, the look of neglect stamped upon everything, brought a sense of shame to the father's heart.
"But there aren't any flowers," sighed Margery.
Aunt Emma's voice was heard calling them in to breakfast.
"No, there ain't any now, but there will be," said her father gravely. The words, though to Margery they sounded so simple, were a promise made to himself and to his dead wife to do better in the future than in the past. "By God's help!" he added, under his breath.
That evening, when he came home from work, he made his way at once out into the garden. He had brought home some bundles of young cabbage plants, and was going to make a bed for them.
"It's too late for most things, but I can do something with the ground," he said to himself, as he went to the tool-shed for his fork and shovel.
The children had gone into Woodley on an errand for their aunt, but might be back at any moment now. The four tidy little patches of ground made the rest of the garden look more wretchedly neglected than ever before; they were to him like four reproaches from his four neglected children.
He began to dig with almost feverish haste, in his desire to get some more of the ground in order, and so absorbed did he become in the improvement he soon made, that he forgot about time and tea, and everything else.
A shout at last made him look up. It was a joyful shout from little Margery, who, catching sight of him at once, came flying along the path to him.