Encoignard, the gardener from Valognes, was contemplating this wildness with a melancholy eye:
"It will have to be ploughed, M. Des Boys, or at least well hoed. Then we'll sift the earth we've broken up, level it down and sow ray-grass. In two years it will be like a carpet of green velvet."
Eyeing the landscape, he went on:
"Lime trees! You ought to have a segoya here and over there an araucaria. And what's that? An apple-tree. That's quite wrong. We'll have that up and put a magnolia grandiflora there. You want an English garden, don't you? An English garden oughtn't to contain anything but exotic plants. Lilacs and roses.... Why not snow-ball trees? Ah, there's a nice spotted holly. We might use that perhaps."
"I don't want anyone to touch my trees," said Rose, who had drawn near.
"She's right," said M. Des Boys.
"Think of pulling up lilacs," Rose went on, "pulling up rose-trees."
"But I mean to put prettier flowers in their place, Mademoiselle."
"The prettiest flowers are the ones I like best."
She picked a red rose and put it to her lips, kissing it as though it were something sacred and adored.