Jane could see when she’d look, so she wrote a great book.”
The three girls were ready for supper before their mother, and they went out into the garden to wait for her. Whenever the Garden girls had to wait, or had a few spare moments, or had work to do that could be done there, it was as natural for them to stroll out into the garden paths as it would have been for a bird to fly out of an open window.
Mrs. Garden was not long following them. She came running downstairs, all in white, and stole up behind Mary, who had not seen her coming. “Why so grave, my little grandmother?” she asked.
“Was I?” Mary turned to her with a smile that was far from grave. “I was wondering whether those hybrid tea roses we planted this spring, which are blooming so well over there, would really prove hardy and survive the winter.”
“Did I ever tell you that the Kelmscourt place, Lord Kelmscourt’s splendid old house, time of George I, has an acre of nothing but roses? Oh, me, it’s wonderful! You really know nothing of gardens over here.” Mrs. Garden dropped her head and sighed wistfully, not an unmistakable sigh, but a delicately done one, conveying a regret that was repressed, struggling to the day.
Instantly Florimel pounced on her, while Mary and Jane exchanged a look of terror.
“Now you’re sorry!” cried Florimel, her voice tragic. “We don’t blame you, but now you’re sorry!” She stalked away, misery in her whole attitude. Mrs. Garden threw up her head with a laugh, her eyes dancing with mischief, swung on the toes of her dainty little slippers like a dancer, and ran after Florimel.
“You little gypsy explosive baby!” she cried, catching her youngest girl around the shoulders and turning her to see her mother’s laughing face. “I thought that would tease you, silly little zanies! Why, girls, can’t you see how happy I am? I’m as pleased as if I’d found a lost treasure chest! I was not obliged to leave you, of course, and I didn’t come anywhere near going, but I feel as though I had escaped a great danger! My lassies, I want you to know, once for all, that I’d rather be your mother than anything else on earth. I’ve said that before, but do realize how true it is! And I love the old Garden house and the old Garden garden, and I’d be horribly jealous for you of any interest that would divide me. I want to be yours, entirely yours! I’ve found it’s the best thing in all the world to be a mother—even a toy-mother! Come, hug me!” Mrs. Garden held out her arms, laughing, but with the merry eyes that called to Mary and Jane, as well as to Florimel, shining through moisture on their lashes.
“Well, Lynette Garden! You bet we’ll hug you!” cried Florimel, and no one felt that the slangy response was blameworthy this time. There seemed to be need of vigorous expression.
The Garden girls crushed the little white-clad figure in a threefold, bearlike embrace. The day was won, their mother was won; the last uncertainty as to her loving them well enough to be happy with them, at the price of the loss of her old world of pleasures and admiration, was settled. The strange relationship, in which the daughters were almost as much their mother’s mother as she was their mother; the protecting, petting, playful love they gave her, the admiring, dependent, comrade love which she gave them, was cemented, assured forever. It was an exceedingly happy, radiant Garden family that came in to supper when Anne called the four young women.