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108 principles and asked Mrs. Poppit as well as Isabel, and they, with Diva, the two Bartletts, and the Major and the Captain, formed the party. The moment Mrs. Poppit appeared, Elizabeth hated her more than ever, for she put up her glasses, and began to give her patronizing advice about her garden, which she had not been allowed to see before.

“You have quite a pretty little piece of garden, Miss Mapp,” she said, “though, to be sure, I fancied from what you said that it was more extensive. Dear me, your roses do not seem to be doing very well. Probably they are old plants and want renewing. You must send your gardener round&#8203;—&#8203;you keep a gardener?&#8203;—&#8203;and I will let you have a dozen vigorous young bushes.”

Miss Mapp licked her dry lips. She kept a kind of gardener: two days a week.

“Too good of you,” she said, “but that rose-bed is quite sacred, dear Mrs. Poppit. Not all the vigorous young bushes in the world would tempt me. It’s my ‘Friendship’s Border:’ some dear friend gave me each of my rose-trees.”

Mrs. Poppit transferred her gaze to the wistaria that grew over the steps up to the garden-room. Some of the dear friends she thought must be centenarians.

“Your wistaria wants pruning sadly,” she said. “Your gardener does not understand wistarias. That corner there was made, I may say, for fuchsias. You should get a dozen choice fuchsias.”

Miss Mapp laughed.

“Oh, you must excuse me,” she said with a glance at Mrs. Poppit’s brocaded silk. “I can’t bear fuchsias. They always remind me of over-dressed women. Ah, there’s Mr. Bartlett. How de do, Padre. And dear Evie!”