She sprang to the big glass door and, pressing the set in the lock, the portal slid smoothly back.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" The exclamation was a soft cadenza, uttered by all three spectators.
The open door revealed a glorious collection of blooming orchids!
CHAPTER XV
ORCHIDIA
"Oh, how perfectly gorgeous!" This a solo from Grace.
"Heavenly, I think!" Cleo chimed in.
"Wherever did you get them all?" asked Grace.
Like a little floral queen, Mary ushered her visitors into this mysterious room, the orchid sanctum of Professor Benson. It was all that the girls had proclaimed it, gorgeous, heavenly and wonderful! The variegated tones of lavendar, known only as orchid, were as elusive as the subtle scent of this tropical bloom. The whole diffusing into something so indescribable that even the spontaneous girls failed for once to rally immediately to a sense of reality. It seemed like a dream, like a picture book, or even a wonderful pastel!
Never before had Mary's quaint personality seemed so well set as she flitted about, bringing her face down to the affectionate shade of flower upon flower, yet never touching with so much as a finger tip the perishable bloom.