"Why, that, Hugh, is my special pride. That is a sport of my own raising; Victoria, I call her. She took a first prize at the flower show last year. We were proud, weren't we, Margaret?"
"Indeed we were, Uncle John. Think, Hugh, she had two hundred and seven buds and blossoms when we sent her. She looked like a snow-drift at sunrise; didn't you, Victoria?"
"Could you send a plant of this size without injury? Ah! I see; pot sunk. Well, she is a marvel of beauty, certainly. I have some slips coming from home for you, Uncle; the box ought to be here to-day or to-morrow. There are one or two things that I think you may not have. But you have a noble collection; what a joy a rose-garden is!"
"Mine used to be the greatest pleasure I had," said Mr. Montfort, "until I took to cultivating another kind of flower, the human variety." He pinched Margaret's ear affectionately, and she returned the pinch with a confidential pat on his arm.
"For many years," he continued, "I lived something of a hermit life, Hugh. There were reasons—no matter now—at all events I preferred solitude, and save for my good aunt, your great-aunt Faith, about whom Margaret will have a great deal to tell you, I saw practically no one from year's end to year's end. Very foolish, as I am now aware; criminally foolish. I have got beyond all that, thank Heaven! During this secluded period, my garden, and my roses in particular, were my chief resource, next to my books. Indeed, in summer time the books had to take the second place, and it should be so. You remember Bacon, Hugh: 'God Almighty first planted a garden; it is the purest of human pleasures,' etc. I used to know that essay by heart. In summer time, the Great Book, sir, the Book of Nature, is opened for us, spread open by a divine hand; it were thankless as well as stupid to refuse to study it. So I studied my garden first, and after that, my fields and woods and pastures. Great reading in a broken pasture! When I wanted human companionship—apart from that sweet and gracious influence of her who was my second mother—I found it in my friends between the covers, who were always ready to talk or be silent, as my mood inclined. I thought I did well enough with Shakespeare and Montaigne and the rest; I have learned now that one living voice, speaking in love and kindness, is worth them all for 'human nature's daily food.'"
Margaret listened, wondering. Her uncle had seldom said so much about his own life even to her, his housemate and intimate companion these two years; while Hugh, without a word, simply from some power of silent sympathy that lay in him, had drawn out this frank speech a few hours after their first meeting. She wondered; and then asked herself, why should she wonder, since she herself felt the same drawing toward her new-found relative. "This must be what it is like to have a brother!" she said to herself; and felt her heart quicken with a new sense of comfort and happiness. "Such a pleasant world!" said Margaret.