He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly.
"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, "its only that we look at things differently. And—and looking at things in the same way rather makes people friends, you know."
He glanced down at the children, close about him now, and then over appealingly at her. But she had moved to a rock a little away from them and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, leaning on her pale pink parasol: she did not catch the glance.
"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested suddenly.
"Babe? She's—her name's Margaret—at school now. She's growing awfully pretty."
"And is she going to live at the place, too?" queried the young lady sharply.
"Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust or something, and have oceans of money and build on a wing and a conservatory and make Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly enough.
"But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone," he went on, "the rest of us like 'em the way they are. There was one separate one on the west side, just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used to work all the morning there and then read in the afternoon. He'd sit on the side porch with his pipe and Bismarck—he was an old collie—and he did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done without Uncle Rob. Father was so busy—he had a big country practice and he used to get terribly tired—and we went to Uncle Rob for everything. He got us out of more scrapes, Ridge and me—
"There were tiger lillies in the south garden and lots of clumps of peonies. Grandmother put those there. And fennel and mint. Mother used to like dahlias—it seems as if she must have had a quarter of a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't—all colors. That garden ran right up against the house, and directly next to the bricks was a row of white geraniums. They looked awfully well against the red. It's a brick house and the date is in bricks over the door—1840. Of course it's been rented for ten years now, but we have our things stored in the attic and the people are careful and—well they love the old place, you know, and they keep up the gardens. They wanted to buy when father died and again after mother—
"But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it from year to year. We always hoped to get it back. And now to think that I should be the one to do it!"