saw the bright sovereign laid on the broad top of one of them; while Mr. Swan, as one of the heroes of the day, and with Mrs. Swan leaning on his arm, looked on approvingly, the latter wearing a black silk gown and a shawl covered with fir-cones.  She was a stout woman, and had been very pretty—­she was supposed by her husband to be so still.  On this occasion, pointing out the very biggest and brightest bunch of cut-flowers he saw, Mr. Swan remarked complacently—­

“They remind me of you, Maria.”

“And which on ’em came from our garden, dear,” said Mrs. Swan, meaning which came from Mr. John Mortimer’s garden.

Swan pointed out several.  “Mr. Fergus came to me yesterday, and said he, ’We want a good lot of flowers to dress up the tent.  You’ll let us have some?’ ‘Certain,’ said I; ‘we allers do.’  Then he marches up to my piccotees.  ‘Now these,’ said he, ’would just suit us.  We could do very well with pretty nigh all of ’em.’  ‘Softly,’ said I; ’flowers you’ll have; but leave the rest to me.  If I’m to have one of my teeth drawn, it’s fair I should say which.’  Yes, William Raby air improved; but I shall allers say as nothing ever can raise that idle dog Phil.  Raby.  I don’t hope for folks that take parish pay.”

The said William Raby came in the evening and brought the big vegetables, wrapped in an old newspaper, for Mr. Mortimer’s acceptance, and when the old man came out into his hall to speak to him, Raby said—­

“It wer’ not only the money.  My wife, her feels, too—­when a man’s been down so long—­as it does him a sight o’ good to get a mouthful o’ pride, and six penn’orth o’ praise to make him hold his head up.”

“St. George was dull yesterday,” observed John Mortimer, when he and his father were alone the next morning in the bank parlour.  “He was not like himself; he flashed out now and then, but I could see that it was an effort to him to appear in good spirits.  I thought he had got over that attachment, for he seemed jolly enough some time ago.”

“When does he sail for Canada?” asked the old man.

“At the end of this week, and I believe mainly for the sake of having something to do.  It is very much to be lamented that my uncle did not manage to make him take up some profession.  Here are his fine talents almost wasted; and, besides that, while he is running about on his philanthropic schemes, Valentine steals the heart of the girl he loves.”

“But,” said his father, “I think the young fellow is quite unconscious that St. George likes her.”

“My dear father, then he has no business to be.  He ought to know that such a thing is most probable.  Here is St. George shipwrecked, floating on a raft, and half starved, when this impudent little yacht, that seems, by the way she flies about, to know the soundings of all harbours by special intuition—­this impudent little yacht comes and looks round the corner of every wave, and actually overhauls the high seas