"Edwin is as pleased as we were, and has forgiven us for not seeing the bedrooms, now that he finds he shall not have to sleep on a stone bench. We have a bed big enough for an old-fashioned family of fifteen to sleep in. I hope you girls are comfortably placed."
"Yes, indeed, beautifully!" we exclaimed in chorus.
"Only look at this old sun-dial, Molly! 'Tempus Fugit' carved around it! I don't believe Time has flown here for many a year. I think he has stood stock-still."
The garden was wondrously sweet in the soft evening light. Waxen white japonicas gleamed through the shrubbery and lilacs, lavender, purple and white were in a perfect tangle, meeting overhead, almost concealing an overgrown walk that led to a rustic summer house in the far corner. Wherever there was nothing else, there was honeysuckle. It seemed to be trying to over-run the place, but periwinkle was holding its own on the ground, asserting itself with its darker green leaves, and snow balls and syringa bushes, shaking off the honeysuckle that had tried to smother and choke it, rose superior with their masses of whiteness. Hyacinths, narcissi, lilies-of-the-valley, snowdrops and violets filled the beds to overflowing, a floral struggle for the survival of the fittest.
"Won't Zebedee love it, though!" said Dee. "It seems almost as peaceful as a graveyard. Listen! Listen! A mocking-bird!"
"We might have known a mocking-bird would build here," whispered Mrs. Green. "There he is on that oleander, and there's his mate still busy with her household duties, carrying straw for her nest. It must be hard to be a female bird and not to be able to pour forth your soul in song, no matter how bursting you are with the joy of living. I always thought that it was unfair. No doubt that little newlywed mocking-bird feels as deeply as the male, but all she can do to show it is just drag straw and hairs and build and build, and then sit patiently on her eggs, and then teach the little ones to fly after she has worn herself to skin and bone grubbing worms for them. No doubt if she should begin to sing she would astonish her little husband to such an extent that he would call her a suffragette, and tell her a lady bird's place was in her nest and he could make noise enough for two, thank you!"
"Well, it certainly would be a pity for her to sing if she couldn't sing," objected Professor Green. "I suppose long ages of thinking she couldn't sing has put her where she can't. Perhaps she can sing, and Mr. Cock Mocking-Bird has told her she can't because he wants the floor, or rather the swinging limb, himself."
"Edwin is trying to get me into an argument on feminism, but the evening is too perfect, and the mere male bird is singing too wonderfully to tempt me to bring discord into the garden."
"Have you talked business yet with either of the ladies, Professor Green? I am getting ready to tell my Timrod good-by."
"Well—er—not yet. I have not had an opportunity."