“Yes, it is rather funny,” remarked Betty. “Did you ever in the whole course of your existence see anything uglier than these three patches of ground? There is nothing whatever planted in them except our darling Scotch heather; and oh, by the way, I don’t believe the precious little plants are thriving! They are drooping like anything! Oh dear! oh dear! I think I shall die if they die!” As she spoke she flung herself on the ground, near the path.
“Of course you won’t, Betty,” said Margaret. “Besides, why should they die? They only want watering.”
“I’ll run and fetch a canful of water,” said Olive, who was extremely good-natured.
Betty made no response. She was still lying on the ground, resting on her elbows, while her hands tenderly touched the faded and drooping bells of the wild heather. She had entered her own special plot. Olive had disappeared to fetch the water, but Margaret still stood by Betty’s side.
“Do you think they’ll do?” said Betty at last, glancing at her companion.
Margaret noticed that her eyes were full of tears. “I don’t think they will,” she said after a pause. “But I’ll tell you what we must do, Betty: we must get the right sort of soil for them—just the sandy soil they want. We’ll go and consult Birchall; he is the oldest gardener in the place, and knows something about everything. For that matter, we are sure to get the sort of sand we require on this piece of waste ground—our ‘forest primeval,’ as Olive calls it.”
“Oh dear!” said Betty, dashing away the tears from her eyes, “you are funny when you talk of a thing like that”—she waved her hand in the direction of the uncultivated land—“as a ‘forest primeval.’ It is the poorest, shabbiest bit of waste land I ever saw in my life.”
“Let’s walk across it,” said Margaret. “Olive can’t be back for a minute or two.”
“Why should we walk across it?”
“I want to show you where some heather grows. It is certainly not rich, nor deep in color, nor beautiful, like yours; but it has grown in that particular spot for two or three years. I am quite sure that Birchall will say that the soil round that heather is the right sort of earth to plant your Scotch heather in.”