"Oh! yes, very, very nice. I never saw so many things growing at once before."
"No! Don't they have gardens in New York then?"
"Some persons do, but not with these things in them: but they have beautiful roses and honeysuckles, and sights of flowers; don't you like flowers, sir?"
"Like flowers? Why, yes. Didn't you see the coxcombs and marigolds in the front garden?"
"Yes," said Mary, a little disappointed; for, to say the truth, she found more beauty in the nicely arranged vegetable beds, with their rich variety of tints, just then bathed in the sunset; besides, a taste for rare flowers had been excited, by many a childish visit to those pretty angles and grass plats, bright with choice flowers, that beautify many of our up-town dwellings in New York. "Yes, they are large and grand, but I like little tiny flowers, with stems that shake when you only touch them."
"Oh, you'll find lots of flowers like that in the spring time, I can tell you. Among the rocks and trees up there, the ground is covered with them."
"And can I pick them?" asked the child, lifting her brightening eyes on uncle Nathan, with a world of confiding earnestness in them, but still doubtful if she would dare to touch even a wild blossom without permission.
"Pick them!" repeated the old man, laughing till his double chin trembled like a jelly. "Why the cattle tramp over thousands of them every day. You may pick aprons full, if you have a mind to."
"I shouldn't like much to pick them in that way," said the child, thoughtfully.
"Why not, ha?"