Dinner had been concluded some time ago. The girls were settling themselves in the swing, or wicker chairs, near one corner of the veranda.
“Lilian, you look like a rose in that pink organdy,” said Betty.
“That’s sweet of you to say, Pansy Girl.” Betty had sometimes been called that since she had worn the pansy dress in the masquerade. “But you look more like forget-me-nots tonight in blue. And Cathalina is like a lily—lilies of the valley and English violets.”
“My white and coral are not much like violets,” said Cathalina.
“Sweet peas, then. They have every color.”
“What’s Hilary, if we must all be flowers?”
“Oh, Hilary’s all the fresh spring flowers that we are glad to see in the spring, hyacinths and lilacs and syringas——”
“Fresh! I like that.”
“Don’t try to put a wrong construction on what I say. Heliotrope and mignonette, that is it.”
“Nonsense,” said Hilary. “I’ll be a sturdy old red geranium that lasts all the year around, and even if you hang it up by the roots in the cellar it grows leaves and flowers the next year.”