I LEARN MY MISTAKE. 11

quite blown, so that you can watch them
open, and as Williams wasn’t there I just cut
them myself.”

“ Like a troublesome interfering child that
you are,” puts in my aunt, with another im-
patient flourish of her work.

“ Never mind, Joan,” sighs Mother, as she
sinks back wearily among her cushions;
“Madge meant only to please me, poor child,
by bringing the flowers, and she could not
know without being told that these roses
were not to be touched.”

“Of course not,” 1 say with much alacrity,
on receiving this small grain of comfort. “Of
course he ought to have told me, or told
Williams to tell me, or locked up the hot-
house— or—” .

My next suggestion dies on my lips, for, on
the gravel-walk outside, I hear the unmis-
takable crunch of Father’s boots, and before
I have time to rush out of the drawing-room
door, which faces our private side entrance
to the garden, there are loud footsteps in the
hall, and a determined voice demanding to