"Very well," said Charity, with dignity, and yet a little uneasily; "you bring the flowers, and I think I can satisfy Your Majesty."
Out he ran, and in a moment he came back, bearing defiantly a fine red-clover blossom.
"Ha, my lady!" he said, as he handed it to her. "There's the first flower I came to; now let's see you find your pistils and stamens and thingamies."
Instead of replying at once, Charity looked long and silently at the pretty flower in her hand. She seemed rather puzzled and crestfallen. Daniel David laughed aloud; even Mrs. Danby and the poetic Amanda smiled.
"Oh!" said Charity, at last, with an air of great relief. "I see it now. How funny! I never thought of it before; but the clover-blossom isn't one flower at all—it's a good many flowers!"
"Ho! ho!" cried Daniel David. "That's a good one! You can't get out of it in that way, my lady. Can she, Ma?"
Ma didn't know. None of the rest knew; but they all crowded about Charity, while, with trembling fingers, she carefully pulled the blossom to pieces, and discovered that every piece was a flower. "See!" she exclaimed, eagerly. "Dozens of them, and every single one complete,—pistil and stamens and all! Oh, my! Isn't it wonderful?"
"I surrender," said Daniel David.
"But you've helped me to find out something that I didn't know before," said the enthusiastic sister, forgiving in an instant all his past taunting. "I wonder if Dorothy knows it. Let's go right over and ask her."
"Agreed," said Daniel David. "Wait till I dress up a bit." Off he ran, whistling, and in fifteen minutes he and Charity were with Dorry in the Reed sitting-room, examining the separated, tiny clover-flowers through Donald's microscope.