"Very early we start for home."
The children were confronted, as it were, by a riddle. These children of the New World met each other to welcome the arrival in the Old World, and now to bid each other farewell.
"We see one another only to say a welcome and a good-bye," said Roland.
"Come into the garden with me," replied Lilian.
CHAPTER III.
AN HOUR IN PARADISE.
The children walked about the garden and gathered flowers, and they seemed to be in fairy land. They went first into the vegetable garden, where dwarf pear-trees were set out at regular intervals, and Lilian, thinking that she must explain everything to the visitor, in a matronly manner, said:—
"Yes, yes, there's no rose-bush, no little tree, which my aunt has not budded, and she hates all vermin. Now just think what aunt reckons as vermin! But you musn't laugh at her for it."
"What? Tell me."
"She considers the birds vermin, too. Oh, you laugh exactly like my brother Hermann. Laugh once more! Yes, he laughs exactly so. But my brother has been in business for three years. Come, we'll look for some flowers now."