The children looked through the sheets, on which were pressed the leaves of the oak, the elm, the birch, the willow, and many others besides, all so different in shape.
"The leaves are very well," said Katey, "but not the flowers. I soon left off pressing them, for the poor flowers looked so wretched, so unlike the living ones, that I did not care to go on."
"I have felt just the same about some of the things in the museums in London," said Mary. "They may interest grown-up people, but not us. They are so dried and withered, that they don't give you much of an idea of what they were in life. Who would ever guess what a man was like by seeing a mummy? and some of the things are no better than mummies."
"I am very fond of flowers," said Katey: "they look lovely in their own places where they grow, but just like mummies, as you say, dried up and stuck upon paper."
"I'll tell you what: we are going to have tea on the lawn, and after tea we'll ask mother to show us some sketches she has made of wild flowers. Now they do give you a real notion of the flowers themselves."
Katey went to the window, and said, "Oh! there is Sarah bringing out the table for tea already. Let us go downstairs into the garden."
So they all went down to watch Sarah lay the cloth, and put the bread and butter and cake on the table, then the milk and sugar, and last of all she brought the teapot.
"Here comes Aunt Lizzie," said Annie; and all the children joined in the request that when tea was over she would show them her paintings of flowers.
"To be sure I will," she said; "and we will look at them out of doors as soon as the tea-table is cleared."
"I do like having tea out of doors," said Annie; "we can never have it in London, however hot it is."