The garden was of considerable size, and, by some freak of nature, of fairly good soil, though the field and most of the surrounding land was very poor. They had all worked hard in this plot ever since their coming; there was not much more to be done, or at least not much planting, which was what Mr. Gillat liked. However, there had been no sharp frosts yet and Julia, who knew his tastes, thought she could find something to please him. She called him to the back kitchen and between them they brought from there a wooden case, the contents of which she began to sort over to find an occupation suitable to him. The box was getting rather empty now, but there was still something in it, bulbs and seeds and printed directions, and a strange mixed smell of greyish-brown paper and buckwheat husks and the indescribable smell of Dutch barns.
It had come from Holland, from the Van Heigens; it was Mijnheer's present to the disgraced companion who had been so summarily dismissed. When Julia went to the cottage, it occurred to her to write to Mijnheer and tell him where she was, and how she meant to live a harmless horticultural life. She had come to think that perhaps she ought to tell him; she knew how her own words, about the way they were thrusting a sinner down, would stay with him and his wife. They would quite likely grow in the slow mind of the old man until he became uneasy and unhappy about her, and blamed himself for her undoing. At the time that she spoke she wasted the words to so grow and germinate; but now, looking back, she could think differently; after all the Van Heigens had only done what they thought right, and she had done what she knew to be at least open to doubt. And they had not thrust her down; it would take considerably more than that to do anything of the sort; they had allowed her an opportunity which she had used to achieve a great success. And now that it was achieved and she had left it all behind and was settled to the simple life--her vague ambition--her heart went out to the simple folk who had first shown her that it might be good; who had been kind to her when there was nothing to gain, who had made her ashamed.
So she wrote to Mijnheer and told him that she had fared well, and found another situation in Holland after leaving his service. Also that she had now left it and, having inherited a little property, had come to live in a country cottage with her father. She further said that she meant to imitate the Dutch and do her own house-work and also grow things, vegetables especially, in her garden.