“Mel is right; I’d love it,” said Jane. “Do you suppose we could do it, madrina?”
Their mother regarded them thoughtfully, her head on one side, as if the car were waiting and the question admitted no delay in answering.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I’m not fond of seeing girls do men’s work. Yet you two are rather the sort to carry it off well; do it well and not have the effect of oversmartness. We might make it a success. But that has nothing to do with the gardener and his driving; you couldn’t look after the car altogether.”
“Now just imagine sitting up in the front seat, with your hands on the wheel, and stooping over to change gears, in that easy way, just as if you’d shifted gears for ages!” cried Florimel, in irrepressible rapture over the picture.
“I always thought that I should like to blow one of those horns, that sound like sudden hysterics, right behind a fearfully stout man who had no idea a car was near,” said Jane, candidly acknowledging this naughty-small-boy ambition.
“How does one get servants in Vineclad?” Mrs. Garden persisted, intent upon her new idea. “I want a man about the place; we need one. Shall we advertise?”
“I suppose so,” Mary hesitated. “You left us Anne, you know, and she has looked after everything till Jane and I began to be able to help. Mrs. Moulton found Abbie long ago. We never had to get any one. I don’t believe there are many gardeners in Vineclad—or chauffeurs, especially not together! I imagine you must advertise in the city.”
“I’ll put in an advertisement, then I’ll get Win to go down and buy the car—I couldn’t decide on one myself—and see the men who answer the advertisement. It ought to work out perfectly,” said Mrs. Garden, more and more in love with her plan as it matured. She was quite childish about it, as eagerly anticipating her gardener as her car, and perfectly sure, now that she had decided upon them, that she must not delay an unnecessary hour obtaining them.
The second result of the garden party was that “the Garden girls’ cute mother” became the absorbing interest with the other girls of Vineclad. Mrs. Garden’s prettiness, her little ways, her poetical name—the girls declared that Lynette Garden was the loveliest name that they had ever heard—her interesting history and, not least, her marvellous costume worn at the party, were discussed with unflagging interest among the younger generation in Vineclad. Mrs. Garden was so wonderfully youthful that the girls felt no hesitation in approaching her, so her three daughters suddenly found themselves in demand, as never before.
Elias Garden, LL.D., had held certain peculiar theories relative to girls’ education. He held them so strongly that, in making his friend Austin Moulton their guardian, he had laid down the course which must be taken in regard to his girls’ training definitely, under such binding conditions in his will that there was no loophole for Mr. Moulton, nor for their mother, had she stayed in Vineclad, to bring them up otherwise than as Mr. Garden had ordained. Neither of the girls was to go to any sort of school until she was eighteen; then she was to be free to choose her career and the preparation for it. But, with all the preceding years spent outside of special training, it was a question whether one of the Garden girls would be prepared at eighteen to take the required examination for entrance in a school suitable to that age. Their father had insisted upon certain studies for his children, under carefully selected masters. Languages the doctor had left for more mature study; the ordinary accomplishments of young girls he had said should be acquired, or passed over, according to the individual talents of the children. But history they must learn; philosophy they must read; mathematics were to be taught them thoroughly, and, especially, English literature, and still more English literature; and a careful, but not a text-bookish grammatical study of the English tongue. Astronomy and geology they were to read with a competent teacher. The doctor had requested that they be made conversant with foreign lands, through books of travel, and especially that they be given a general knowledge of great art and music; not to draw, to play, nor to sing, but in such wise that they might enjoy other people’s performance and the noble pictures, statues, and architecture which are the inheritance of the ages. For the rest Doctor Garden had amply provided for the training of any particular talent that one of his girls might develop; these things were obligatory.