So two years passed, during which Mademoiselle Henriette tilled her
garden and turned it into a paradise. There were white roses on the
south wall, and in the beds mignonette and boy's-love, pansies,
carnations, gillyflowers, sweet-williams, and flaming great
hollyhocks; above all, the yellow monkey-blossoms that throve so well
in the marshy soil. And all that while no one had caught so much as
a glimpse of her sister, Lucille. Also how they lived was a marvel.
The outlandish lady bought neither fish, nor butcher's meat, nor
bread. To be sure, the Parson sent down a pint of milk every morning
from his dairy; the can was left at the garden-gate and fetched at
noon, when it was always found neatly scrubbed, with the price of the
milk inside. Besides, there was a plenty of vegetables in the
garden.
But this was not enough to avert the whisper of witchcraft. And one
day, when Parson Morth had ridden off to the wrestling matches at
Exeter, the blow fell.
Farmer Anthony of Carne--great-grandfather of the present farmer--had
been losing sheep. Now, not a man in the neighbourhood would own to
having stolen them; so what so easy to suspect as witchcraft? Who so
fatally open to suspicion as the two outlandish sisters? Men, wives,
and children formed a procession.
The month was July; and Mademoiselle Henriette was out in the garden,
a bunch of monkey-flowers in her hand, when they arrived.
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