I should like to garden like you.

I've got a spade, and a hoe, and a fork, and I had a rake, but it's lost.

But I know papa will give me another; and I can tidy my own beds, so the gardener need not touch them; and if there was a wheelbarrow small enough for me to wheel, I could take my weeds away myself, you know." And I chattered on about my garden, for, like other children, I was apt to "take up" things very warmly, in imitation of other people; and Mr.Andrewes had already fired my imagination with dreams of a little garden in perfect order and beauty, and tended by my own hands alone; and as I talked of my garden, the parson talked of his, and so we wandered from border to border, finding each other very good company, Rubens walking demurely at our heels.

A great many of Mr.Andrewes' remarks, though I am sure they were very instructive, were beyond my power of understanding; but as he closed each lecture on the various flowers by a promise of a root, a cutting, a sucker, a seedling, or a bulb, as the case might be, I was an attentive and well-satisfied listener.

I much admired some daffodils, and Mr.Andrewes at once began to pick a bunch of them for me.
"Isn't it a pity to pick them ?" I said, politely.
"My dear Regie," said Mr.Andrewes, "if ever you see anybody with a good garden of flowers who grudges picking them for his friends, you may be quite sure he has not learnt half of what his flowers can teach him.