The lady laughed as merrily as a girl and patted Dorothy’s shoulder with appreciation of the Judge’s joke. Then started to lead the way around the cottage into that inviting greenery behind, when a curious voice hindered her by a pathetic appeal:
“Mamma! Oh! Mamma! Don’t go and leave poor Mum! Quisanthemum must go with Mamma!”
The visitors turned in surprise, toward this querulous “child” as the girls fancied it, though the Judge was already smiling his understanding of the matter. Then there appeared in the doorway a parrot, of wonderful plumage and exaggerated awkwardness; who waddled from side to side, climbed one side of its mistress’s gown to her shoulder and walked head-first down the other, rolling its eyes and emitting the most absurd moans till the two girls were convulsed with laughter.
Then Mrs. Cook held out her wrist, the parrot settled on it, and they proceeded to the garden; the lady explaining:
“This little Miss Chrysanthemum is a spoiled baby. She’s only a few months old, was brought to me by one of my sailor friends, and about rules the house now. Especially when my boy is away.”
As she mentioned her “boy” the tiny woman looked rather anxiously into the Judge’s face; and Dorothy noticed that her own was really quite young, despite the white hair and widow’s cap which crowned it. She thought the lady charming, she was so small, so delicate and quaint. Yet there was the real “English color” on her still fair cheek and her eyes were as bright a blue as Molly’s own.
“Son told me you would call. Also, Ephraim wrote me in his last letter; but I had not expected you to-day. I thought you were to be in Yarmouth for a week or more and didn’t anticipate so prompt a kindness.”
Then opening a little bag which hung fastened to her waist, the cottager drew from it a pair of blunt-pointed scissors and gave them to Dorothy, saying:
“It’s you I see, who has the keenest eyes for flowers. Cut all you want of anything you fancy;” and she swept her hand rather proudly toward the hedges of sweet-peas, just coming into bloom, and the magnificent roses which were earlier in her protected garden than elsewhere in the town.
Had Dorothy known it, this was a rare privilege that had been accorded her. Mrs. Cook loved her flowers as she did her human friends and had a fancy that cutting them was almost as cruel as wounding a person she loved. Until they faded she never cut them for her own enjoyment; and only now and then nerved herself to clip them for the cheer of some ailing neighbor. She was therefore greatly pleased when the girl returned the scissors, after one questioning glance toward Molly, as to her possible disappointment.