"It doesn't really matter," said Patty, "and we're even, anyway; for I can't understand why you want those fearful posters in your room, instead of the nice little pictures I had planned to give you."
"Oh, yes; I knows yo' nice little pictures! with a narrow black ban', jes' about the size ob a sheet of mo'nin' paper! No, thank you, missy, no black-bordered envelopes hanging on my wall! Give me good reds and yallers and blues; the kind you can hear with yo' eyes shut. That is, ef yo' don't mind, missy. Ef yo' does, I'll take 'em all right slam-bang down."
"No, no, Mancy; it's all right. In your own room I want you to have just exactly what you want, and nothing else. Now, let's go and see how Pansy's getting along."
The rockery was completed, and was a most imposing structure. Wheat ears and dried oats were sticking out from between the stones, and pressed autumn leaves added a touch of colour. At the base of the rockery were a large pink-lined conch-shell and several smaller shells. On the walls were various branches of different species of vegetation; among others a tangle of twigs of the cotton plant, from which depended numerous bolls.
Pansy was struggling with a lot of evergreen boughs, which she was trying to crowd into a strange-looking receptacle.
"How do you like it, Miss Patty?" she asked, as Patty stood in the doorway and gazed in.
"I like it very much, for you, Pansy," replied Patty. "If this is the kind of room you want, I'm very glad for you to have it; only, I don't know whether to call it 'First Course in Mineralogy,' or 'How to Tell the Wild Flowers,'"
CHAPTER VIII
AN UNATTAINED AMBITION
To say that Boxley Hall was in readiness for the party would be stating it very mildly. It was overflowing,—yes, fairly bursting with readiness.