“Tottenham poetical!” cried Harry, with a laugh; “no, not exactly. And that’s an old affair now, since they’ve been married about a century; but it shows what even a dull man can do. Don’t you think love’s a very rum thing?” said the young man, cutting the Cape jasmine all to pieces; “don’t you think so? A fellow doesn’t seem to know what he is doing.”
“Does Lady Mary let you cut her plants to pieces, Mr. Thornleigh?” said Margaret, feeling her voice quaver with amusement. Upon which Harry stopped short, and looked sheepishly down at the bunch of flowers in his hand.
“I meant to get you a nosegay, and here is a great sheaf like a coachman’s bouquet on a drawing-room day,” cried Harry, half conscious of this very distinct commentary upon his words. “Never mind, I’ll tell the gardener. I suppose there are heaps more.”
“How delightful to have heaps more!” said Margaret. “I don’t think poor folk should ever be brought into such fairy places. I used to think myself so lucky with a half-a-dozen plants.”
“Then you are fond of flowers?” said Harry.
What woman, nay, what civilised person of the present age, ever made but one answer to such a question? There are a few people left in the world, and only a few, who still dare to say they are not fond of music; but fond of flowers!
“I do so wish you would let me keep you supplied,” said Harry, eagerly. “Trouble! it would be the very reverse of trouble; it would be the very greatest pleasure—and I could do it so easily—”
“Are you a cultivator, then?” said Margaret, “a great florist?” she said it with a half-consciousness of the absurdity, yet half deceived by his earnestness. Harry himself was startled for the moment by the question.
“A florist! Oh, yes, in a kind of a way,” he said, trying to restrain an abrupt momentary laugh. A florist? yes; by means of Covent Garden, or some ruinous London nurseryman. But Margaret knew little of such refinements. “It would be such a pleasure to me,” he said, anxiously. “May I do it? And then you will not be able quite to forget my very existence.”