The Garden girls and their absurdly un-uncle-fied young uncle had a habit of sitting out in their garden in the evening from such an early date in the spring that everybody croaked “malaria,” till so late a date in the autumn that, figuratively speaking, the neighbourhood clothed them in shrouds and got out its own funeral garments.
But Vineclad, sitting some fifteen miles back from the Hudson River, never administered malaria to its trusting children, and the old Garden garden could never have been persuaded to harm its three girls, between whom and it was a love profoundly sympathetic.
Mary found Jane, Florimel, Win, and Mark, with Chum nearby, in the comfortable wicker chairs which stood about on the grass with which the garden emphasized its paths, permitting it to grow as a small lawn on the west side of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Moulton were just coming toward them through the broad path which led directly from the side gate.
Mr. Moulton was not above medium height. His hair was grizzled, as was his short-cropped moustache; he stooped and peered at the world through large-lensed glasses, as if he regarded everything, collectively and separately, as specimens. Mrs. Moulton, on the other hand, carried herself so erect that she might have been protesting that the specimens were not worth while. No one had ever seen her dishevelled, nor dressed with less than elegant appropriateness to the time and occasion. The result was that she conveyed an effect of elderliness though she was not quite fifty years old, which is young in this period of the world’s progress. Her light-brown hair showed no thread of gray, her aristocratic face was still but lightly lined, and her complexion was fair, yet one thought of her as of a person growing old, though doing so with great nicety.
The three Garden girls sprang up to meet these arrivals with the alacrity and deference which was the combination of manner that Mrs. Moulton liked. Florimel damaged the effect this time by overturning her chair and stepping on Chum’s tail. Both chair and dog bounded as this happened and Chum howled, too newly adopted to be sure the injury was not intended.
“A dog, my dear?” asked Mrs. Moulton of Jane, at that moment kissing her cheek. But she looked beyond Chum at Mark, as being, in every sense, the larger object.
“Yes, Mrs. Moulton,” said Jane, curbing her desire to laugh. “Florimel found it lost, and brought it home. We have adopted it as a friend; it seems to be obedient and good tempered.” She flashed a look at Mark, calling upon him to appreciate this doubly accurate description. Her hair, rumpled by the breeze, seemed to flash with her eyes; it looked like a part of the afterglow in the west now illumining the garden.
“Dog!” said Mr. Moulton, who had not discovered Chum. “Looks like a boy to me, a boy I don’t know.” He peered at Mark through his large glasses.
Win presented Mark, instinctively feeling that it would incline Mr. and Mrs. Moulton more favourably toward Mark if Win, and not the young girls, assumed the responsibility for him.
“Walpole, did you say?” Mrs. Moulton repeated after Win. “Mark Walpole? What was your father’s name? I knew of Walpoles in Massachusetts—what was your town?”