"I'm an old bag of bones!" he said—"Not much good to myself or to any one else! You'd better bundle me out on the doorstep!"
For an answer she brought him a little cup of nourishing broth tastily prepared and bade him drink it—"every drop, mind!"—she told him with a little commanding nod. He obeyed her,—and when he gave her back the cup empty he said, with a keen glance:
"So I am your father's friend, am I, Mary?"
The blood rushed to her cheeks in a crimson tide,—she looked at him appealingly, and her lips trembled a little.
"You were so very ill!" she murmured—"I was afraid you might die,—and I had to send for the only doctor we have in the village—Mr. Bunce,—the boys call him Mr. Dunce, but that's their mischief, for he's really quite clever,—and I was bound to tell him something by way of introducing you and making him take care of you—even—even if what I said wasn't quite true! And—and—I made it out to myself this way—that if father had lived he would have done just all he could for you, and then you would have been his friend—you couldn't have helped yourself!"
He kept his eyes upon her as she spoke. He liked to see the soft flitting of the colour to-and-fro in her face,—- her skin was so clear and transparent,—a physical reflection, he thought, of the clear transparency of her mind.
"And who was your father, Mary?" he asked, gently.
"He was a gardener and florist,"—she answered, and taking from the mantelshelf the photograph of the old man smiling serenely amid a collection of dwarf and standard roses, she showed it to him—"Here he is, just as he was taken after an exhibition where he won a prize. He was so proud when he heard that the first prize for a dwarf red rose had been awarded to James Deane of Barnstaple. My dear old dad! He was a good, good man—he was indeed! He loved the flowers—he used to say that they thought and dreamed and hoped, just as we do—and that they had their wishes and loves and ambitions just as we have. He had a very good business once in Barnstaple, and every one respected him, but somehow he could not keep up with the demands for new things—'social sensations in the way of flowers,' he used to call them, and he failed at last, through no fault of his own. We sold all we had to pay the creditors, and then we came away from Barnstaple into Somerset, and took this cottage. Father did a little business in the village, and for some of the big houses round about,—not much, of course—but I was always handy with my needle, and by degrees I got a number of customers for lace-mending and getting up ladies' fine lawn and muslin gowns. So between us we made quite enough to live on—till he died." Her voice sank—and she paused—then she added—"I've lived alone here ever since."
He listened attentively.
"And that is all your history, Mary? What of your mother?" he asked.