They went on for some distance, without any difficulty or trouble. At last, they came to a place where a road branched off from the main road, and led into the woods. They turned into this road, for Royal said that it led to a place where they could get some flowers. Both Rollo and Lucy said they should like this very much, for they wanted to have some flowers. Rollo said that he was going to study botany; his mother was going to teach him.
“I wish I could study botany,” said Lucy; “I should like botany a great deal better than arithmetic.”
“Well,” said Royal, “I can teach you.”
“O Royal,” said Lucy, “you don’t know how to study botany.”
“Yes, I do,” said Royal. “The first thing is to study the leaves; you must gather all the different kinds of leaves you can find, and press them in a book.”
“What good does that do?” said Lucy.
“O, then you know how many different shapes of leaves there are,” he replied.
Rollo had put his picture-book into the wagon, just before they had set out from the house, thinking that perhaps they might stop at some place, where he would want to look at it. So he asked Royal if his picture-book would do to put the leaves into, and Royal said it would do very well. And they all determined that, after they had gone a little farther, they would stop and get some leaves by the side of the road.
They were now in a sort of by-road, leading through the woods; but presently they came to a kind of cart path, which turned out to one side, and seemed to lead to places still more solitary than where they were. Royal wanted to turn off into this cart path.
“It will be a beautiful place to study botany, in there,” said he.