"Tilly can't see poetry in anything that doesn't jingle like 'If you love me as I love you, no knife can cut our love in two,'" chanted Bertha.
"My dears!" remonstrated Mrs. Kennedy, feebly.
Tilly turned with swift pacification.
"Don't you worry, Mrs. Kennedy. I'm used to it. They can't trouble me any!"
It was Mr. Hartley who broke the silence that followed.
"Well, Miss Cordelia," he asked laughingly, "what is the matter? You've been peering in all directions, and you look as if you hadn't found what you were hunting for. You weren't expecting to find soda fountains and candy stores on the prairie, were you?"
Cordelia smiled and shook her head.
"Of course not, Mr. Hartley! I was looking for the blue bonnets—the flowers, you know. Genevieve said they grew wild all through the prairie grass."
"And so they do—specially, early in the spring, my dear. I wish you could see them, then."
"I wish I could—Genevieve has told me so much about them. She says they're the state flower. I thought they had such a funny name; I wanted to pick one, if I could. She says they're lovely, too."