“Worcester, and my father’s name was Cathay. My grandfather was in India, and was pretty tired of it. He named my father Cathay because he felt as though he had been there a hundred years, had ‘a cycle of Cathay,’ you know. Hard on my father to get such a name, wasn’t it?” replied Mark.
“That’s the Walpole I meant!” Mrs. Moulton triumphed. “The very one! I didn’t know him, but a friend of my girlhood did; one couldn’t forget that name. Suppose you sit here and talk to me.” She led the way to a bench and motioned Mark to a place beside her.
“And suppose you sit here and talk to me!” echoed her husband, drawing a chair close to the one he took and inviting Mary to it. Mr. Moulton availed himself of most opportunities to appropriate Mary, his favourite of the three girls whom his friend had left to his guardianship, dear as they all were to him.
But the conversation did not divide itself off into duets. Mr. Moulton ceased to draw from Mary her story of the doings of the Garden household since his last report, and Jane and Florimel, neither of whom was often silent, joined in listening to Mrs. Moulton’s catechism of Mark and his answers.
“It isn’t as if I were all right, you know,” Mark said quietly, when he had told her of his aim to make his way in the world, though his hope of preparing to follow the course he would have chosen had been wiped out. “I’m lame. It doesn’t bother me much, but it will probably get in the way of lots of things a sound boy might do. I got my foot smashed when I was a little chap and it couldn’t be mended to be as good as new. But I’m sure I’ll limp into something—something that will keep me out of the bread line!”
“Mark was telling me, Mr. Moulton,” interposed Win, seeing his chance, “that he had gone quite far in botany, already he was planning to specialize in it, when he was thrown out of his own place in the world. I thought that would interest you.”
“Why not?” said Mr. Moulton, turning from Mary to scrutinize Mark anew, scowling at him nearsightedly. “As to being thrown out of your place in the world, my lad, there’s no power on earth can play you that trick; it’s every man’s work to make the place he’s in his own place. It’s a consoling truth—and most absolutely a truth—that a man often grows bigger himself for having to fit himself to a smaller place than he had expected to fill. As to this ambition of yours interesting me, touch a man on his hobby and there is not much question of interesting him! I’m a botanist by choice and profession, though luckily for me I could afford to be! I live in spite of it, not by means of it. I’m working on a vast herbarium and a big book: ‘A Study of the Flora of New York.’ Now if you knew enough to help me—I’m not sure it would be just to your future, but—I could use a clever youngster who had what I’d call botanical common sense as well as sympathy. Come and see me to-morrow morning! I can measure you if I have you in my study, but not here. From the beginning a garden, a garden with even one girl in it, proved fatal to planning for a happy future!” Mr. Moulton twinkled behind his owl-like lenses. His wife arose to go.
“When Mr. Moulton becomes facetious I say good-night,” she remarked. “I have a few chapters of my library book to finish before I sleep. We came only to be assured the Garden children still blossomed. Fancy finding Cathay Walpole’s boy here!” She arose with a rustling, impressive dignity, and her husband meekly arose also.
“Another reminiscence of that first garden—I do what the woman bids me,” he said.
The three girls kissed both their guardian and his wife, and offered their own cool cheeks to receive their good-night kiss. Then they escorted them to the gate, while Win strolled beyond it with them, accompanying them home. Jane and Florimel joined hands and danced like nymphs up the walk. It was always a strain upon them to keep up to Mrs. Moulton’s standards of propriety during one of their visits. Mary ran after the two, having lingered a little to say a last word to their old friends. Jane switched her skirts, held out in both hands, as she danced alone around the lawn. Florimel took Chum’s forepaws and tried to get her to dance, but the big puppy growled a protest and Florimel gave it up.