“And you won't forget to send me the copy of Mrs. Browning?”
“No, I seldom forget. But I may not send it. Science is better for you just now than poetry. What is that blossom you are so carefully cherishing?”
Miss Lady's eyes fell, and the color leapt to her face.
“This? Just a wild rose I found over there by the wall. I thought they had stopped blooming weeks ago.”
The Doctor took it in his hand and examined it minutely: “It is the Rosa Blanda,” he said, “five cleft sepals that terminate in a tube. Pliny tells us that in ancient days the warriors used the petals of this rose to garnish their choicest meats. Who is that quaint person coming over the stile?”
“It's Miss Ferney. What a nuisance, on our last day! But I forgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tell a little fib, won't you, and say you need me for something?”
“It will not be a fib,” said the Doctor quietly, “I do need you.”
Miss Lady met her caller at the front porch and relieved her of the jar she was carrying.
“It's pickles,” said Miss Ferney, a withered little woman whose small, nibbling face suggested a squirrel's. “I thought having company you might need 'em. Don't know though. City people may be too aristocratic to eat country pickles.”
“The idea, Miss Ferney! Don't you sell them in the city all the time?”