“You look as if you had been gleaning,” said the Professor, as he watched the girls begin to trim their rough straw hats with the gay coquelicots and the bearded ears.
“I feel as if I were doing that every day, sir, and gathering in a great harvest of pleasure, if nothing else,” answered Jenny, turning her bright eyes full of gratitude from one kind face to the other.
“My poppies are much prettier than that stiff stuff. Why didn't you get some?” asked Ethel, surveying her brilliant decoration with great satisfaction.
“They don't last; but my wheat will, and only grow prettier as it ripens in my hat,” answered Jenny, contentedly settling the graceful spires in the straw cord that bound the pointed crown.
“Then the kernels will all drop out and leave the husks; that won't be nice, I'm sure,” laughed Ethel.
“Well, some hungry bird will pick them up and be glad of them. The husks will last a long time and remind me of this happy day; your poppies are shedding their leaves already, and the odor is not pleasant. I like my honest breadmaking wheat better than your opium flowers,” said Jenny, with her thoughtful smile, as she watched the scarlet petals float away leaving the green seed-vessels bare.
“Oh, I shall get some artificial ones at my little milliner's, and be fine as long as I like; so you are welcome to your useful, bristly old wheat,” said Ethel, rather nettled by the look that passed between the elders.
Nothing more was said; but both girls remembered that little talk long afterward, for those two wayside nosegays served to point the moral of this little tale, if not to adorn it.
We have no space to tell all the pleasant wanderings of our travellers as they went from one interesting place to another, till they paused for a good rest at Geneva.
Here Ethel quite lost her head among the glittering display of jewelry, and had to be watched lest she rashly spend her last penny. They were obliged almost forcibly to carry her out of the enchanting shops; and no one felt safe till she was either on the lake, or driving to Chamouni, or asleep in her bed.