"Oh dear—Oh dear—Oh dear," said my Mother. She seemed very sorry. She folded her hands. "Oh very well," she said. "Mondays,—Wednesdays,—Fridays,—and Sundays,—I will be the fragrance of the Tulip Goldfinch. But Tuesdays,—Thursdays and Saturdays I really must insist on being the fragrance of a White Iris!"
"Humph!" said my Father. "There aren't any of them that are worth the nice inky lithograph smell of the first Garden Catalogues that come off the presses 'long about February!"
My Mother clapped her hands again.
"Oh Goodie!" she said. "Write Father down as choosing to smell like 'the nice inky lithograph smell of the first Garden Catalogues that come off the presses 'long about February'!"
My Father had to tell us how to spell "Lithograph." Carol wrote it very carefully. My Mother laughed.
"Well really," said my Mother, "I'm beginning to have a very good time.—What is Question No. 2?"
"Question No. 2," I said, "is:—If you were a Beautiful Sound instead of a Beautiful Father and Mother,—what Beautiful Sound in the whole wide world would you choose to be?"
My Father felt better almost at once.
"Oh Pshaw!" he said. "That's easy. I'd be the Sound of Gold Pieces jingling in the pocket of a man—of a man—" He looked at my Mother. "—Of a man who had a Brown-Eyed Wife who looked something like my Brown-Eyed Wife—and three children whose names—when you spoke 'em quickly sounded very similar—yes, very similar indeed to 'Ruthy' and 'Carol' and 'Rosalee'!"
"Oh what nonsense!" said my Mother.