beyond led you into the study, where, about the hour of noon, it was very probable that the two brothers would be found together. At any rate it was so on the morning on which my story opens.

The room was one of those comfortable dens which man, without the aid of feminine taste and adornments, is occasionally so fortunate as to construct for himself. It was low and square, and had neither chintz nor flowers to relieve the dark furniture; but the Turkey carpet, although somewhat faded, had lost little of the richness of its finely blended colours; the books which lined the walls were bound with a care and finish which hinted at something approaching to bibliomania on the part of their owners; the pictures, though few, were choice, and the chairs were deep and inviting. Moreover, a summer noonday brightened whatever sombreness remained: sunshine came broadly in through a deep oriel-window, and the scent of flowers and newly mown grass mingled pleasantly with that of Russia leather and old morocco. The room was a cheerful room, although the cheerfulness might be of a subdued and old-world character; and the writing-table, while conveying certain suspicions of business transactions in the form of sundry bundles of papers docketed and tied with red tape, bore also a proof of more voluntary studies in a magnificently bound edition of Homer lying open upon the blotting-pad.

Mr Mannering, who had but just pushed his chair away from the table, was standing upon some low steps in the act of drawing another volume from his amply filled book-shelves, and turning round as he did so to answer a remark of his brother Robert’s. His slim figure was dressed with scrupulous neatness; he had slender hands,—one of which now rested on the top step, straight from the wrist, and, if one might draw an illustration from another member, as it were on tiptoe; his shoulders were a little stooping, his head bent and turned inquiringly; and his quiet voice and smile contained something of quaint humour, and were noticeable at once.

“My dear Robert,” he was saying, “can there be any use in my giving an opinion? So far as I understand the matter, you are blaming Stokes for not understanding the different natures of Gesnera elliptica and Gesnera elongata. How can I, who until this moment was ignorant of the existence in the world of any Gesnera at all, be an equitable arbiter?”

“Wrong, Charles, wrong. That is not the question; in fact, that has nothing whatever to do with the question,” said Mr Robert, resuming his hasty march up and down the room. “Stokes is a fool, and, as he never was anything else, I suppose he can’t help himself. I don’t complain of that. What I complain of is, that he should attempt to be more than a fool. Haven’t I told you fifty times,” he continued, stopping suddenly before the delinquent, “that your business is to mind my orders, and not to think that or think this, as if you were setting up for having a head on your shoulders? Haven’t I told you that, eh?—answer me, sir.”

“’Tain’t no fault of mine,” rejoined the gardener, slowly and doggedly. “If this here Gehesnear had had a quiet time and no worriting of charcoal and korkynit and such itemy nonsense, you wouldn’t ha’ seen a mossel of dry-rot in the bulb. That’s what I says, and what Mr Anthony says, too.”

“Confound your impudence, and Mr Anthony’s with it. So you have been taking him into consultation? No wonder my Gesnera has come to a bad end between your two wise heads. Charles, do you hear?”

“Mr Anthony has mastered horticulture, has he?” said Mr Mannering, turning his back upon the combatants, whose wrath was rapidly subsiding. “If the boy goes on in this fashion there must be a new science created for his benefit ere long. Well, Robert, science has always had its martyrs, and you should submit with a good grace to your Gesnera being among them. When did Mr Anthony come back?”

“Tuesday night, sir. He comed up here yesterday, but you was to Under’am.”

“I forbid his going within ten yards of the stove plants,” cried Mr Robert, hastily. “If I find him trying experiments in my hot-houses, you shall be packed off, Stokes, as surely as I have put up with your inconceivable ignorance for seven years. I’ve not forgotten what Anthony Miles’s experiments are like. Didn’t he nearly blow up Underham with the chemicals he got hold of when that idiot Salter’s back was turned? Didn’t he bribe the doctor’s assistant, and half poison poor old Miss Philippa with learning how to mix medicines, forsooth? Didn’t he upset his mother, and frighten her out of the few wits she possesses, by trying a new fashion of harnessing? And now, as if all this were not enough, my poor plants are to be the victims. I forbid his coming within the great gate,—I forbid your speaking to him while he is possessed with this mania,—I forbid his looking at my Farleyense—”

“He’ve a seen that, sir,” said Stokes, with his stolid features relaxing into a grin.

“O, he has seen that, has he?” said Mr Robert, struggling between indignation and gratified pride. “Do you hear that, Charles? Actually, before I’ve had time to give my orders. And, pray, what had Mr Anthony to say of my Farleyense?”

“He said,” replied the gardener, doling out the sentences to his impatient master with irritating slowness, “as how he had comed through Lunnon, and been to one o’ they big flower-shows they talk so much about. And he said as there were a Farlyensy there—”

“Well, well?”

“As belonged to a dook—”

“Yes,—well, what did he say? Can’t you speak?”

“As warn’t fit to hold a candle to owers,” burst out Stokes triumphantly, slapping his leg with an emphasis which made Mr Mannering, who had returned to his seat at the writing-table, start and look round in, mild expostulation. His brother was rubbing his hands, and beaming in every feature of his round face.

“To be sure, to be sure,” he said in a tone of supreme satisfaction. “Just what one would have expected. But I am glad Anthony happened to be up there just at this time, and I will say for the lad that he makes better use of his eyes than three parts of the young fellows one meets with. So it was an inferior sort of article, was it?—with fronds half the size, I’ll lay a wager. You hear, Charles, don’t you? Well, Stokes, you have been exceedingly careful to treat that Farleyense in the manner I showed you,—I knew it would answer,—here, man, here’s half a sovereign for you, and mind the earth doesn’t get too dry.”

“Thank ye, sir, thank ye,” said Stokes, prudently abstaining from the contradiction in which at another time he might have indulged.

“And, Stokes—”

“Yes, Mr Robert.”

“If Mr Anthony comes up again, just let me know. I should wish him to see one or two of the other things in the house, but I prefer showing them to him myself.”

“It’s most likely he’ll be up again to-day, sir. He wants Miss Winifred to have a look at the plant.”

“Certainly, certainly. You can send in word when they come. And, Stokes—”

Stokes, who by this time had his hand upon the door, having tucked the luckless Gesnera out of sight, turned obediently.

“No experiments, mind, no experiments.”

“No, Mr Robert ’Specially korkynit,” added the gardener in an audible whisper, as he went out. Whether or not Mr Robert heard him, it is impossible to say. Something like a red flush rose in his