"Papa, it is glorious!" said Margery.
Papa laughed. "I hope you will still think it glorious when the weeding time comes," he said, "for you know, you and mother have promised to take care of this garden, while I take care of the big one."
"I wouldn't not take care of it for anything!" said Margery. "I want to feel that it is my very own."
Her father kissed her, and said it was certainly her "very own."
Two evenings after that, when Margery was called in from her first ramble in the fields, she found the postman at the door.
"Something for you, Margery," said her mother, with the look she had when something nice was happening.
It was a box, quite a big box, with a label on it that said:—
Miss Margery Brown,
Primrose Cottage,
21 Narcissus Road,
Colchester.
From Seeds and Plants Company, Reading.
Margery could hardly wait to open it. It was filled with little packages, all with printed labels; and in the packages, of course, were seeds. It made Margery dance, just to read the names,—nasturtium, giant helianthus, canariensis, calendula, Canterbury bells: more names than I can tell you; and other packages, bigger, that said, "Sweet Peas," "French beans," "Carrots," "Wallflowers," and such things! Margery could almost smell the posies, she was so excited. Only, she had seen so little of flowers that she did not know what all the names meant. She did not know that a helianthus was a sunflower until her mother told her so, and she had never seen the dear, blue, bell-shaped flowers that always grow in old-fashioned gardens, and are called Canterbury bells. She thought the calendula must be a strange, grand flower, by its name; but her mother told her it was the gay, sturdy, everydayish little flower called a marigold. There was a great deal for a little city girl to be surprised about, and it did seem as if morning was a long way off!