The Chief Gardener thought a minute.
"Why, yes, Prue," he said, "that's Cousin Stella; I suppose she came to see the beautiful Dian and to make her all the trouble she can."
"Oh, Papa! what do you mean by Stella and Dian?"
"Well, Stellaria is chickweed, and she's a cousin to Dianthus, your lovely pinks. I suppose you might call them Stella and Dian, for short. They are not very nearly related, but they do belong to the same family, and perhaps they were once more alike. I don't suppose beautiful Dian would own Stella, but Stella (or perhaps her weed friends call her Chick), is a great nuisance and makes Dian and her friends all the trouble she can."
"Papa," said Davy, who had been silent all this time, "are there really any plant families that don't have wild members who behave badly and become just weeds?"
"I don't remember any real weeds in the Lily family, Davy, though almost any plant will become a weed if allowed to run wild and live in fence corners, like a tramp. They become prodigals then, like the man's son in the Bible. And sometimes they come back to the garden, as the prodigal son did, to become well-behaved and useful flowers again. Of course, there are many others that have always lived wild in the woods and fields, and are not called weeds, because they do not spread and destroy other plants. These are our wild flowers, and the world would be poor, indeed, without them. Sometimes we bring them into the garden, and make them grow larger and call them by a new name. And sometimes, I am sorry to say, a sweet wild flower will suddenly spread and overrun the fields and become almost a weed. I am afraid our beautiful daisies are becoming a weed to a good many farmers. Those fields that are like banks of snow, and so beautiful to us, must worry the man who owns them and cannot get rid of the millions of 'rare Marguerites!'"
Little Prue sighed.
"Oh, dear," she said, "it's just too bad that there isn't some flower, or somebody, or something that can be just every bit good, all the time, to everybody."
The Chief Gardener smiled.
"We can only do our very best," he said.