CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE GARDEN.
"Who would have thought this place could ever blossom like the rose," exclaimed Margaret Wakefield, settling comfortably in a long steamer chair and looking about her with an expression of extreme contentment.
"It's the early summer that did it," remarked Judy Kean. "It came to console us after that brutal winter."
"It's Mrs. O'Reilly's labors chiefly," put in Katherine Williams. "She told me that this garden had been the comfort of her life."
"It's the comfort of mine," said Margaret lazily. "Watching you girls there hoeing and raking and pulling up weeds reminds me of a scene from the opera of 'The Juggler of Notre Dame,'—the monks in the cloister working among their flowers."
Molly paused in her operation of the lawn mower.
"It is a peaceful occupation," she said. "It's the nicest thing that ever happened to us, this garden, because it was such a surprise. I never suspected it was anything but a desert until one day I looked down and saw Mrs. O'Reilly digging up the earth around some little green points sticking out of the ground, and then it only seemed a few days before the points were daffodils and everything had burst into bloom at once. This apple tree was like a bride's bouquet."
"That's stretching your imagination a bit," interrupted Judy, reclining at full length on a steamer rug on the ground. "Think of the gigantic bride who could carry an apple tree for a bouquet."
"Get up from there and go to work," cried Molly, poking her friend in the side with her foot. "Here's company coming this afternoon, and you at your ease on the ground!"