“I rather wanted to see her.”
“She’s been carrying on alarming about you ever since you stole her Lily. And she didn’t take me on her knee and cuddle me, when she found you were gone off. How do you like me new frock?”
Michael thought that in her checkered black and green gingham she looked like an old Summer number of an illustrated magazine, and he told her so.
“Well, there! Did you ever? I never did. There’s a bouquet to hand a lady! Back number! Whatever next? I wonder you hadn’t the liberty to say I’d rose from the grave.”
“Aren’t I to see Sylvia?” Michael asked, laughing.
“Well, don’t blame me if she packs you off with a flea in your ear, as they say—well, she is a Miss Temper, and no mistake. How do you like me garden?”
Mulberry Cottage was just the bower of greenery that Michael had supposed he would find in early June.
“Actually roses,” he exclaimed. “Or at least there will be very soon.”
“Oh, yes. Glory de Die-Johns. That was always Pa’s favorite. That and a good snooze of a Sunday afternoon was about what he cared most for in this world. But my Captain he used to like camellias, and gardenias of course—oh, he had a very soft corner in his heart for a nice gardenia. Ah dear, what a masher he was to be sure!”
Sylvia had evidently seen them walking up the garden path, for leaning over the railings of the balcony she was waiting for them.