“Yes, and my femur of a rabbit,” said Armine, “and said it was a nasty old bone, and the baker’s Pincher ate it up; but I did find my turtle-dove’s egg in the ash-heap, and discovered it over again, and you don’t see it is broken now; it is stuck down on a card.”
“Yes,” said his mother, “it is wonderful how valuable things become precisely at twelve on Saturday.”
Each had some department: Janet’s, which was geology, was the fullest, as she had inherited some youthful hoards of her father’s; Bobus’s, which was botany, was the neatest and most systematic. Mary thought at first that it did not suit him; but she soon saw that with him it was not love of flowers, but the study of botany. He pronounced Jock’s butterflies to be perfectly disgraceful.
“You said you’d see to them,” returned Jock.
“Yes, I shall take up insects when I have done with plants,” said Bobus, coolly.
“And say, ‘Solomon, I have surpassed thee’?” asked Mr. Ogilvie.
Bobus looked as if he did not like it; but his mother shook her head at him as one who well deserved the little rebuke for self-sufficiency. There was certainly a wonderful winning way about her—there was a simplicity of manner almost like that of Babie herself, and yet the cleverness of a highly-educated woman. Mary Ogilvie did not wonder at what Mr. and Mrs. Acton had said of the charm of that unpretending household, now broken up.
There was, too, the perception that, beneath the surface on which, like the children, she played so lightly, there were depths of sorrow that might not be stirred, which added a sweetness and pathos to all she said and did.
Of many a choice curiosity the children said, in lowered tones of reverence, that “he found it;” and these she would not allow to be passed over, but showed fondly off in all their best points, telling their story as if she loved to dwell upon it.
Barbara, who had specially fastened herself on Mr. Ogilvie, according to the modern privileges of small girls, after having much amused him by doing the honours of her own miscellaneous treasury, insisted on exhibiting “Mother Carey’s studio.”