"My young friends, I am very sorry to see you so unhappy; but perhaps if you will hear what I have got to say, you might think better of your present position."
"Well," said Miss Strong, who was tossing her long arms about in a very excited way, only luckily she was out of reach, "if you are going to take the gardener's part, and preach patience and submission, and that sort of thing, I can tell you you had better keep your remarks to yourself, or if I can get at you, I'll spoil that neat head-dress of yours, which, let me tell you, is not half as pretty as hundreds in the hedgerows, or as ours would have been, if we had been left to our own devices as we were last year;" which tirade she ended with a scornful laugh in which many of the others joined.
But little Miss Wild-Rose, who was nearer, said quietly,
"Perhaps it would be as well to hear what is said on the other side; particularly as, it is too hot to go on screaming and abusing people who don't seem to care about it;" and as several of the others were of the same opinion, Madame Boll took courage, and said what was in her mind.
"Perhaps it may give you more confidence in me to know, that when I was first placed here I had many of the same thoughts and feelings that you appear to have. I did not know why I was taken out of the hedgerow, and trimmed and restrained, and not allowed to have my own way; and I confess I thought it very hard. Particularly I was indignant, as no doubt you will be when the time comes (for you have still a good deal to undergo which you know nothing about at present),—I was, I say, very indignant when the gardener cut a slit in the only shoot which he had left me, and which was growing very luxuriant, and I was quite proud of it; and introduced a meagre little bud from another tree, and made me nourish and strengthen it, though I knew that my own shoot would suffer by it; and so it turned out; for after a while, when the bud began to grow, he cut away [{853}] my natural shoot altogether, and left only that which had been inserted."
Here Miss Strong broke in.
"You were very tame to submit to it. I would have banged and twisted about till I had got rid of it some way or other."
"Ah!" said Madame Boll, "we shall see; you are stronger and more resolute than I was. All I know is, I could not help myself."
"Cowardly creature!" muttered Miss Strong, scornfully. But Madame Boll resumed:
"I soon got used to the change, and gradually began to take an interest in the bud I had adopted; and though of course Miss Strong may affect to despise its beauty, I can assure you that most people have a different opinion."