"Isn't it a delight to have such splendid things to work with?" exclaimed Dot. "Why, Granny, don't you believe we have been spirited away to some enchanted castle?"
Granny laughed, and surely thought they had.
Hal, meanwhile, was stocking his green-houses. Loads of sand and loam had to be brought; piles of compost and rubble standing convenient; and the two boys worked like Trojans. And then the journeys to florists, that seemed to Hal like traversing realms of poesy and fragrance. Great geraniums that one could cut into slips, roses, heliotrope, heaths, violets, carnations, fuchsias; indeed, an endless mass of them. Hal's heart was in his throat half the time with a suffocating sense of beauty.
It was such a pleasure to arrange them! He used to handle them as if they were the tenderest of babies. Watering and ventilation on so large a scale was quite new to him; and he went at his business with a little fear and trembling, and devoted every spare moment to study.
Mr. Darol had paid the bills as they had been presented. One day Hal asked to see them. The request was evaded for a while; but one evening, when he was dining with Mr. Darol, he insisted upon it.
"Very well," returned Mr. Darol smilingly. "Here they are: look them over and be satisfied. Very moderate, I think."
The hot-house had cost thirteen hundred dollars; soil, and various incidentals, one hundred more; flowers, three hundred.
"Seventeen hundred dollars," said Hal in a grave and rather tremulous tone. "And seven thousand on the house."
"The mortgage is to remain any number of years, you know. Joe has arranged to pay part of the interest. And the conditions of these"—gathering them up, and turning toward Hal, who was leaning against the mantle, rather stupefied at such overwhelming indebtedness.
"Well?" he said with a gasp that made his voice quiver.