Dr. Page took off his glasses and laid them upon his open book. He did not really imagine that she was serious—such a turn-about-face was too precipitate even for Olivia; but it pleased him to meet her on her own ground.
“And what is it this time? A sixty-inch telescope? Or a diamond tiara?”
“Well, no. Those are things I had not thought of—before! It’s a kind of gardening project—a little matter of transplanting.”
“Will it cost a hundred and fifty dollars?”
“About that, I should think, to do it properly and comfortably. And—it can’t 233 wait till June. It’s the kind of transplanting that has to be done in the autumn.”
Then, dropping the little fiction, and resting her chin upon her folded hands, the better to transfix her father’s mocking countenance,—“Papa,” she said, “there’s a poor family down at the Corners,—our neighbours, you know,—and the mother is dying for want of transplanting, just like the beautiful hydrangea—you remember?—that I didn’t understand about till it was too late. I never knew what too late meant, till I saw that splendid great bush lying stone-dead on the ground when we came home from the Adirondacks last year. A great healthy hydrangea dying just for lack of the right kind of soil! And now, here is this good human woman, that might live out her life and bring up her little family, and be happy and useful for years to come. Such a nice woman she must be to name her babies Patsy and Biddy, when she might have called them Algernon and Celestina, you know, and just spoiled it all!—and such a nice, kind husband to take care of her on a big ranch 234 where there’s good air, and lots to eat, and plenty of work and not too much, and—why Papa! they might have a garden out there! who knows? What a thing that would be for the prairie! A real New England garden!”
“With a sun-dial?” the professor interposed.
For an instant Olivia’s face fell, but only for an instant.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, with a very convincing seriousness, “that perhaps a sun-dial is not so important, after all. At any rate it’s not so important as the mother of a family; now, is it, Papa?”
“That depends upon the point of view,” the professor opined. “As a high light among the rose-bushes I should be constrained to give my vote for the sun-dial.”