“Oh, dear me, yes, but nothing of that sort! Child things. They say I can speak like a little girl. And then I wore the most ravishing little blue frock, and a captivating white pinafore. They say I actually looked a child. I’ll do it for you some day. But what I love best to do is imitations. I’ll do them all for you. My voice lets me recite for a short time,” said Mrs. Garden eagerly.
“I should think, if it wasn’t strong—it sounds clear and full when you talk—but if it got a little tired I’d think you would sound more like a child than ever,” Jane said.
“What an understanding child you are, Janie!” her mother said, bringing Jane’s quick colour to her cheeks. “Really, I think we four shall get on quite nicely, don’t you? Only you don’t seem in the least like my daughters. Over there I was treated like a girl, myself.”
“Of course,” said Florimel decidedly. “I think it’s more than likely we shall treat you like a girl, too, when we get acquainted.”
“Now I’m ready. Dear me, don’t you wear gloves in the garden? Nor garden hats? How frightful! Why, you’ll be like—what’s that little song I used as an encore? ‘Three Little Chestnuts up from the Country?’ That’s it! You’ll be three little brown chestnuts by autumn. Let me see your hands. Of course! Quite tanned, and it’s only June! You have beautiful hands, Mary! I hadn’t noticed them. Jane’s are pretty, slender, and graceful; Florimel’s are very well, but yours are beautiful, Mary. I think I’ve never seen nicer hands.”
“Thank you, mother,” said Mary, hiding them in her sleeves. “I hope they’ll be able to do things for you.”
“That’s precisely the sort they look to be, my dear,” returned her mother. “Now, if you’re ready, children, we may as well go out and see whether the early birds have caught the worms! Dear me, I hope they’ve made away with the caterpillars! The worst of gardens is that while the flowers are delightful, the insects are simply maddening.”
The girls received a new impression of the garden when their mother came into it. To them it had always been their best-loved friend, awaiting them, laden with gifts, if they neglected it, which rarely happened. But Mrs. Garden did not regard it as wholly trustworthy. She did not plunge carelessly into its welcome, as her children did. Florimel was dispatched for a rug to guard her feet from dampness; Jane was sent back to get a down cushion to ease and protect her shoulders; Mary was set to testing currents of air, to determine where the least draught blew. Altogether it suddenly was apparent to the girls that going into the garden in the morning was not the simple thing they had thought it. Yet this frail “English bit of motherwort,” as Mary called her, was delighted with the garden, the birdsong, the sunshine, and the fragrances, after she was made comfortable and safe.
Mary ran away to prepare coffee for her, Mrs. Garden having decided “to become a real American,” she said, and break her fast with coffee, foregoing tea. But Anne had forestalled Mary. She had ready a delicious potful of the perfect coffee which was the pride of that household, and a tray filled with silver cups and saucers, cream and sugar, snowy rolls and golden butter, and another supplementary tray with a great bubble of a cut glass bowl filled with late strawberries, and the small translucent dishes in which to serve them.
“Oh, Anne, she must be happy here!” cried Mary, seeing these preparations.