ground, and tell him to "pick the pretty flowers." John Broom preferred
flowers even to china cups with gilding on them. He gathered nosegays of
daisies and buttercups, and the winning way in which he would present
these to the little ladies atoned, in their benevolent eyes, for many a
smashed teacup.

But the tramp-baby's restless spirit was soon weary of the
drying-ground, and he set forth one morning in search of "fresh woods
and pastures new." He had seated himself on the threshold to take off
his shoes, when he heard the sound of Thomasina's footsteps, and,
hastily staggering to his feet, toddled forth without farther delay. The
sky was blue above him, the sun was shining, and the air was very sweet.
He ran for a bit and then tumbled, and picked himself up again, and got
a fresh impetus, and so on till he reached the door of the kitchen
garden, which was open. It was an old-fashioned kitchen garden with
flowers in the borders. There were single rose-colored tulips which had
been in the garden as long as Miss Betty could remember, and they had
been so increased by dividing the clumps that they now stretched in two
rich lines of colour down both sides of the long walk. And John Broom
saw them.

"Pick the pretty flowers, love," said he, in imitation of Thomasina's
patronising tone, and forthwith beginning at the end, he went steadily
to the top of the right-hand border, mowing the rose-coloured tulips as
he went.

Meanwhile, when Thomasina came to look for him he could not be found,
and when all the back premises and the drying-ground had been searched
in vain, she gave the alarm to the little ladies.