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Sunflowers are alive, I know; they look so different when they are dead. And I am sure they go to sleep, and wake up with candles, or Dr. Brown would not have said so. But it is rather a quiet kind of being alive and awake, I think. Something like Grandmamma, when she is very stiff on Sunday afternoon, and goes to sleep upright in a chair, and wakes up a little when her book drops. But not alive and awake like Margery’s black cat, which must have heard me open the side door, and followed me without my seeing it. It did frighten me, with jumping out of the bushes, and looking at me with yellow eyes!

Then I saw another eye. The eye of a moth, who was on one of the leaves. A most beautiful fellow! His colored wings were rather tight, like the Sunflower’s glory leaves, but he was wide awake–watching the candle.

I should have got back to bed quicker if it had not been for Margery’s black cat and the night-moths. I wanted to get the cat into the house again, but she would not follow me, and the moths would; and I had such hard work to keep them out of the Rushlight.

There was nothing to drown the noise the key made when I locked the side-door again, and when I got to the bottom of the back stairs, I saw a light at the top, and there was Grandmamma in the most awful night cap you can imagine, with a candle in one hand, and the watchman’s rattle in the other.

CHAPTER IV.

HEADS OFF! JAEL AND MASTER JOHN. FAREWELL. FRIEND IN NEED. A FREE PARDON.

The worst of it was, I caught such a very bad cold, I gave more trouble than ever; besides Grandmamma having rheumatism in her back with the draught up the back stairs, and nothing on but her night things and the watchman’s rattle. I knew I deserved to be punished, but I did not think my punishment would have been such a terrible one.

I hoped it might have been lessons, or even, perhaps, not having the Rushlight again, but I did not think Grandmamma would think of hurting the Sunflowers.

She waited till I was well enough to go out, and I really began to think she was going to be kind enough to forgive me, with a free forgiveness. But that day she called me to her, and spoke very seriously, and said, that to punish me for my misconduct, and to try and cure me of the babyish nonsense I gave way to about things, she had decided to have all the Sunflowers destroyed at once, and not to have any seed sown for new ones, any more. The gardener was to do it next morning, and I was to be there to see. She hoped it would make me remember the occasion, and teach me better sense for the future.

I should have begged and prayed, but it is no use begging and praying to Grandmamma; Jael attends more to that. There was no comfort anywhere, except in thinking that Margery would be at home in two days, and that I could pour out all my sorrow to her.

As I went crying down the passage I met Jael.

“What’s the matter now?” said she.

“Grandmamma’s going to have all the Sunflowers killed,” I sobbed. “Oh, I wish I’d never gone to look at them with the Rushlight!”

“That’s how it is,” said Jael sagely, “folks always wishes they’d done different when it’s too late. But don’t sob your heart out that fashion, Miss Grace. Come into the pantry and I’ll give you a bit of cake.”

“Thank you, dear Jael, you’re very kind, but I don’t think I could eat cake. Oh Jael, dear Jael! Do you think she would spare one, just one?”

“That she wouldn’t, Miss Grace, so you needn’t trouble your head about it. When your Grandmamma’s made up her mind, there’s no one ever I saw can move her, unless it be Dr. Brown. Besides, the missus has never much mattered those Sunflowers. They were your mamma’s fancy, and she’d as many whims as you have, and put your Grandmamma about a good deal. She was always at your papa to be doing this and that to the place ‘Wasting good money’ as your Grandmamma said. Your papa was a very easy gentleman. He wanted to please his wife, and he wanted to please his mother. Deary me! I remember his coming to me in this very pantry–I don’t know if it would be more than three months afore they were both taken–and, standing there, as it might be you, Miss Grace, and saying–‘Jael,’ he says, ‘this window looks out on the yard,’ he says; ‘do you ever smell anything, Jael? You are here a good deal.’ ‘Master John,’ I says, ‘I thank my Maker, my nose never troubles me; but if it did’ I says, ‘I hope I know better than to set myself up to smell more than my neighbors.’–‘To be sure, to be sure,’ he says, looking round in a foolish kind of a way at the sink. Then he says, ‘Jael, do you ever taste anything in the water? My wife thinks there’s something wrong with the well.’ ‘Master John,’ I says, ‘with all respect to your good lady, she disturbs her mind a deal too much with books. An ounce of ex-perience, I say, is worth a pound of book learning; and I’ll tell you what my father said to them parties that goes round stirring up stinks, when they were for meddling with his farm yard. “Let wells alone,” he says, “and muck heaps likewise.” And my father passed three-score years and ten, Master John, and died where he was born.’ Well-a-day! I see your poor Pa now. He stood and looked as puzzled as a bee in a bottle. Then he says–‘Well, Jael, my wife says Sunflowers are good against fevers; and there’s no harm in sowing some.’ Which he did that very afternoon, she standing by him, with her hand on his shoulder; but, bless ye, my dear! they were took long before the seeds was up. Your mother was a pretty woman, I’ll say that for her. You’d never have thought it, to look at her, that she was so fond of poking in dirty places.”