“Do you know languages, children?” asked Mrs. Garden.
“Not even one, though we can make ourselves understood in English,” Mary said.
“I know a good deal of German and French, and Italian I really know quite well. I must begin to read with you, regularly, this summer. I don’t want to be only a hindrance to you girls; I want to be a help, too,” Mrs. Garden said with a pretty appealing eagerness.
“No fear of that! And, anyway, aren’t people the best kind of help when you can do for them? Let me give you these tremendous strawberries; I’ve been picking out some bouncing ones for you,” Mary urged, unconsciously illustrating the truth of the first part of her answer to this “toy mother.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“’TIS JUST LIKE A SUMMER BIRD CAGE IN A GARDEN”
“Are you girls always as good as this?” asked Mrs. Garden on the third day after her arrival. Her tone expressed something akin to despair.
“Don’t you ever frolic, do anything young, perhaps something you ought not to do? You’re like my grandmothers.”
Mary and Jane laughed, glancing at each other.
“We’re being good purposely, you know,” said Jane. “It isn’t an accident.”