"Oh mercy!" shrieked Grace. "Mary, what are you talking about?"
"Well, you just wait and see. There, catch that little fly or just shoo it over this way."
Becoming serious now, serious enough to see the fun out at any rate, the girls waved hands and handkerchiefs around some perfectly innocent little flies, and presently they made for the plant which Mary had again deposited on the window box. For a minute or two the insects buzzed around, then made for the flower of the plant.
"Mercy!" screamed Grace.
"Land sakes!" added Cleo.
"Oh!" ejaculated Madaline.
But the little fly was gone. The plant had actually eaten it up!
Swallowed it whole!
The girls looked at Mary now, as if she were almost uncannily wise, or in some way magical. She expected their attitude, evidently, for her own low musical laugh followed.
"I know you think it is very queer, girls," she explained, "but in the country I come from this is a common plant. Grandie calls it by a long name, but most people call it the Pitcher Plant. You see, it is filled with something that attracts insects, and when they go in for the nectar they can't get out. This kind is rare, and I have watched it lest Janos would get it. In New York he could sell it and I know he would have taken it, but I have kept it hidden for a long time. See how pretty its colors are, and how wonderfully it is shaped and formed?"
"Oh, I remember now," said Cleo. "I have heard Daddy talk of such plants, but of course I never saw one. It is something of an orchid, isn't it?"