The sponge-cake was eaten, and Jenny, with a triumphant kiss on the little rosy, withered-apple cheek, popped her head in at the parlour door to cry, "Good day, Mis' Means!" and flew laughing away with her victory and her cakes.
"Well, Anne Peace," was Mrs. Means's greeting, as her hostess came back, looking flushed and guilty, and wiping her lips on her apron, "how you can stand havin' that Miller girl round here passes me. She'd be the death of me, I know that; but it's lucky other folks ain't so feelin' as I am, I always say. Of all the forward, up-standin' tykes ever I see—but there! it ain't to be supposed anybody cares whether I'm sassed or whether I ain't."
Saturday was bright and fair, and Anne Peace stood at the window with a beaming smile, watching the girls troop by on their way to the picnic. She had moved Mrs. Means's sofa out of the corner, so that she could see, too, and there was a face at each window. Miss Peace was a little plump, partridge-like woman, with lovely waving brown hair, and twinkling brown eyes. She had never been a beauty, but people always liked to look at her, and the young people declared she grew prettier every year. Mrs. Means was tall and weedy, with a figure that used to be called willowy, and was now admitted to be lank; her once fair complexion had faded into sallowness, and her light hair had been frizzed till there was little left of it. Her eyebrows had gone up, and the corners of her mouth had gone down, so that her general effect was depressing in the extreme.
"There go Tudie and Jenny!" cried Miss Peace, in delight. "If they ain't a pretty pair, then I never saw one, that's all. Jenny's dress doos set pretty, if I do say it; and after all, it's her in it that makes it look so well. There comes the minister, Delia. Now I'm glad the roses are out so early. He doos so love roses, Mr. Goodnow does. And the honeysuckle is really a sight. Why, this is the first time you have fairly seen the garden, Delia, since you came. Isn't it looking pretty?"
"I never did see how you could have your garden right close 't onto the street that way, Anne," was the reply. "Everybody 't comes by stoppin' and starin', and pokin' their noses through the fence. Look at them boys, now! why, if they ain't smellin' at the roses, the boldfaced brats. Knock at the winder, Anne, and tell 'em to git out. Shoo! be off with you!" She shook her fist at the window, but, fortunately, could not reach it.
"Hi-hi!" said Anne Peace. "You don't mean that, Delia. What's roses for but to smell? I do count it a privilege, to have folks take pleasure in my garden." She threw up the window, and nodded pleasantly to the children. "Take a rose, sonny, if you like 'em," she said. "Take two or three, there's enough for all. Whose little boys are you?" she added, as the children, in wondering delight, timidly broke off a blossom or two. "Mis' Green's, over to the Corners! Now I want to know! have you grown so 't I didn't know you? and how's your mother? Jest wait half a minute, and I'll send her a little posy. There's some other things besides roses, perhaps she'd like to have a few of."
She darted out, and filled the boys' hands with pinks and mignonette, pansies and geraniums.
It was not a large garden, this of Anne Peace's, but every inch of space was made the most of. The little square and oblong beds lay close to the fence, and from tulip-time to the coming of frost they were ablaze with flowers. Nothing was allowed to straggle, or to take up more than its share of room. The roses were tied firmly to their neat green stakes; the crown-imperials nodded over a spot of ground barely large enough to hold their magnificence; while the phlox and sweet-william actually had to fight for their standing-room.
It was a pleasant sight, at all odd times of the day, to see Miss Peace bending over her flowers, snipping off dead leaves, pruning, and tending, all with loving care.
Many flower-lovers are shy of plucking their favourites, and I recall one rose-fancier, whose gifts, like those of the Greeks, were dreaded by his neighbours, as the petals were always ready to drop before he could make up his mind to cut one of the precious blossoms; but this was not the case with Anne Peace. Dozens of shallow baskets hung in her neat back entry, and they were filled and sent, filled and sent, all summer long, till one would have thought they might almost find their way about alone. It is a positive fact that her baskets were always brought back, "a thing imagination boggles at;" but perhaps this was because the neighbours liked them better full than empty.