"I don't know," said Maggie, "that's a great thing to make up my resolution about, and I'll have to think about it a little. Oh, here are Mr. Porter and the boys. Now let us go."
"Maggie and Bessie, mamma wants to speak to you in her room before you go," said Harry, looking very full of glee.
The little girls ran in, and there, oh, delight! there stood mamma with a tiny spade, rake and hoe in each hand. It was quite impossible to mistake who they were meant for. They were just of the right size for our two small gardeners; and mamma's look and smile as she held them out told that they were for their use.
Maggie gave a shriek of delight and went capering all about the room; and Bessie's bright smile and the color which flushed her cheeks told that though less noisy, she was not less pleased than her sister.
"Oh, you darling, precious mamma," said Maggie, pausing in her capers to examine the pretty toys, "they are just what we wanted. How did you get them so quickly?"
"I brought them with me," said mamma, "thinking that some day when you wanted, something to do, they might furnish you with a new pleasure; but I did not think they would prove useful so soon. You must be careful of them, and not leave them lying out in the damp, or they will be spoiled."
The children readily promised, and ran off to show their treasures to their brothers and Mr. Porter.
Mr. Porter soon measured off such a square of ground as he had promised for each of them, adding one for Hafed, who was much pleased to do as the others, and fell to with a good will at digging and planting. Mr. Porter also kindly gave them such seeds as would do to plant at this late season; and papa, who had driven down to the village with the Colonel and Uncle Ruthven, came back with a number of verbenas, heliotropes, geranium slips and other pretty things, which were set out in the new gardens. Nor was this all, for Uncle Ruthven had bought a small watering-pot for each child, and they had gone to the carpenter's, where the Colonel had ordered two wheel-barrows, one of a fit size for Maggie and Bessie, the other a little larger for the boys, and these were to be done in a day or two. In short, nothing seemed wanting to success but patience and industry on the part of the young gardeners.
The girls chose to have only flowers in their gardens, but the boys had some vegetables as well. Mr. Porter told them the beds must be kept nicely weeded, and watered when the weather was dry.
There was only one fault which Maggie and Bessie could find with their gardens, and that was that they lay at such a distance from the house that mamma could not allow them to go there without their brothers or nurse to have an eye upon them. Not that they were not to be trusted out of sight, but mamma did not think it safe for two such little girls.