"He's fixed up the pinies real nice. See 'f you remember which the white
one was."
Sophy stepped over the dividing line, and the two sisters walked away
to the peony settlement. Gardener Jim touched Wilfred on the arm.
"You go along," said he. "I'll finish here. You 'tend to Annie's gardin.
I hove a trowel over the fence there this mornin'. You go an' git up
some o' them weeds."
Wilfred nodded in unquestioning compliance. As he hesitated then for a
moment, watching the sisters, and wondering what they were talking
about, Eliza raised her hand and brushed a leaf from Sophy's shoulder.
Then they went on talking, but apparently of the garden, for they
pointed here and there in a fervor of discovery. Wilfred turned with a
rush and went off to Annie Darling's.
He found the trowel under the fence, as Gardener Jim had prophesied,
and he worked all day, with a brief nooning at home. The garden was
full of voices. Here was a plant he had driven ten miles to get for
her; here were the mint and balm she loved. It seemed to him, as the
hours went by, that he was talking with her and telling her many
things--confessions, some of them, and pleas for her continued
kindliness. When he had finished, all but carrying away his pile of
weeds, he heard a voice at the gate. It was Lily, under a bright
parasol, her face repeating its bloom.
"Well, I never!" she called. "You goin' to turn gardener, same as your
uncle did?"
Wilfred took off his hat, to feel the air, and went forward toward her.
He was not embarrassed. She seemed to him quite a different person from
what she had before.
"I've just got it done," said he, with a perfect simplicity. "Don't it
look nice?"
Lily had flushed, and, he thought with surprise, she looked almost
angry. But she laughed with the same gay note.
"Been doin' it for Annie Darling?" she asked. "For darling Annie?"
"Yes," said Wilfred, "I've been doin' it for Annie."
"Mercy! how hot it is!" said Lily, "Seems if there wasn't a breath of
air anywhere. I must get home and see if I can find me a fan."
She was rustling away, but Wilfred did not look after her. He was too
busy.
When the weeds had all been carried away, he stood looking at the
orderly garden with something like love for it in his heart. And then
the gate clicked and Annie came in and up the path. There was a strange,
wistful radiance in her face, as if she had chanced upon an undreamed-of
joy. It was like the home-coming of a bride. Wilfred strode over the
beds and put his arms about her.
"O Annie!" he said. "I'm glad you've come!"
At six o'clock they were still in the garden, talking, though she had
opened the house, and the smoke was coming out of the chimney from the
fire boiling the water for their tea. Gardener Jim, going home from his
work, came up to the fence and leaned on it, eying the garden
critically.
"Well, Wilfred," said he, "you've done a good day's work."
The youth and maid came forward. His arm was about her waist and her
cheeks were pink.
"How'd you leave the twins?" asked Wilfred.
Gardener Jim looked off into the road vista, and shook all over,
mirthlessly.
"I heerd 'em say they were goin' to have flapjacks for supper," said he
gravely, "an' fry 'em in Sophy's part." His eyes came back to Annie and
studied her for a moment. Then he spoke abruptly. "I'm goin' to give you
suthin', Annie--that set o' flowered chiny. It's all there is left in
the house that's wuth anything. 'Twas my mother's, an' her mother's
afore her, an' there ain't a piece missin'. When you git ready for it,
Wilfred here he'll come round an' pack it up."