"Oh, no, I'm not. There's plenty more. I mean to give you some of my purple and white foxgloves, when you get a place for them. Our garden is so full, it will be all the better for thinning out a little. It a'n't quite time to plant out salvias and scarlet geraniums; but, when it is, I'll give you some nice ones."
"How in the world do you contrive to get so many flowers together, Mrs. De Witt?" asked Agnes, who had come in and was languidly looking on at the planting of the carnations. "It must cost a great deal both of time and money."
"Oh, Mr. De Witt is a florist. That's his business. He works for Segur & Tryon, the great nursery-people:—herbaceous plants and bulbs, his department is. I expect you must have been up that long, green walk in their garden, with the flowers on each side. Well, all that is under his care. He used to work in the greenhouse; but it injured his health."
"It must be terribly hot, disagreeable work," said Agnes.
"Oh, he don't mind. He was brought up to it in the old country from the time he was a boy,—and his father and grandfather before him; though he says it a'n't so hot there as it is here. You couldn't hire him to do any thing else. He says people who never work in their gardens don't have half the comfort that those do who take all the care themselves; and I believe that is so."
"So do I," said Letty. "But is Mr. De Witt English?"
"Dutch," replied Mrs. De Witt,—"Holland Dutch; but he speaks English so well that hardly any one guesses it. That's the way my little girl comes by her odd name,—Gatty. Her name is really Gertrude; but her father calls her Gatty: so every one else does the same. I'd set the carnations a little deeper, Mrs. Caswell, if I were you."
"Don't you mean to make a garden, Agnes?" asked Letty.
"No. Joe says it costs more than it comes to, and that it is cheaper to buy what one wants at the market. He laughed the other night when John brought home his seeds, and said he might expect his cucumbers to cost him a shilling apiece when they were done."
"I don't see how that can be," said Letty. "What expense is there after the first cost of the seeds?"