"'Deed I do," admitted Mary Jane who had been too busy looking around and pretending that all this was her own private palace, to talk with mere folks! "I love it here!"
"Let's go over and meet mother," suggested Miss Burn, "and see if tea is ready. Then you may walk around the garden all you like and pick as many flowers as you want to."
They found Mrs. Burn waiting for them under the rose-covered terrace, and tea was all ready but the hot water which came in a few minutes. Mary Jane was very glad that the grown folks were too busy talking to count the number of lobster salad sandwiches she ate—they were so good—even better than the nut sandwiches which were usually her favorites. After tea, the girls wandered up and down the little paths in the garden and picked a few flowers; not many, for the flowers looked so lovely there that it seemed a shame to take them away.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mary Jane later as she saw her mother rise to go, "now it's going to be late and we'll have to go and—and I'd just love to stay in this garden forever and ever! I would!"
"I wish you could, dear," said Mrs. Burn, "because I like to have little girls around me—especially little girls who love flowers as you two do. But I'll tell you," she added comfortingly, "you've found the way out here now and the next time you come to Boston, which will be some time soon, let's hope, you come and see me the very first day and stay as long as ever you can."
Mary Jane promised and then she took a last glimpse at the fountain of goldfish before Miss Burn took them back to Boston and their hotel.
"When I have a house," she said as she dropped off to sleep that evening, "I'm going to have a garden just like Miss Burn's with goldfish and one silver fish and tea and lobster salad sandwiches and everything!"
THE LAST DAY IN BOSTON—AND HOME
The last morning in Boston! Mary Jane blinked at the bright sunshine that streamed in at the window and asked sleepily, "What are we going to do to-day, Mother?"
"Mother!" exclaimed Alice, suddenly wide awake, "we forgot to go to Concord! And my teacher told me surely, surely we must take that ride up through Sleepy Hollow and Concord."