‘I really don’t think we need worry,’ said Caroline again and again. ‘I think with the herbs it’s sure to be all right, and the Uncle will let us keep him.’ She spoke as if Rupert were a stray kitten or an ownerless puppy. ‘You see the fern-seed came right, and the sorry bouquet we gave to the Wilmington came right, and you’ll see this will. We’ll give him some in his tea as well as the bouquet, and that’ll make quite certain.’
‘It’s all nonsense,’ said Charlotte. ‘Besides, he’ll spit it out. I know I should. You can lead an uncle to the teapot but you can’t make him drink.’
‘We’ll have calceolaria,’ Caroline finally decided, ‘because it means “I offer you pecuniary aid,” or “I offer you my fortune”; and, of course, Rupert’ll cost something to keep. And double china aster, if we can find it, because it means “I share your sentiments.” Straw means agreement, so we’ll have that too. It needn’t show in the bouquet. And eschscholtzia, because that signifies “do not refuse me.”’
They got the calceolarias and the eschscholtzias, but the gardener said the asters weren’t out yet.
‘It’s only two flowers,’ said Charlotte; ‘suppose we wear something in our button-holes to mean “we trust in you”?’
Nothing meaning just that, however, could be found in the book. The nearest was heliotrope, ‘I turn to thee,’ and rhododendron, ‘danger.’ A bouquet of rhododendron and heliotrope was, however, found to be incompatible with the human button-hole, so these flowers were added to the Uncle’s bouquet.
‘And now,’ said Charlotte, ‘let’s go in and express the juices. We can’t chew them this time, because it would be disgusting.’
‘Scissors and tea, I think,’ Charles said, and this bright suggestion was acted on.
The Unusual Clergyman was perhaps partly to blame for what followed. Calceolaria, rhododendron, and eschscholtzia (a word I spell with the greatest pain and difficulty) were cut up very fine indeed with Caroline’s nail-scissors, and secreted in Charles’s handkerchief—a clean one fetched down for the purpose. When the tea-tray was brought in, and the maid had gone to ring the bell which summons uncles, the lid of the teapot was hurriedly raised and a good handful of chopped leaves and petals thrust in.