Presently Lulu slipped out and was gone a few minutes. She came back sparkling, with her cheeks very rosy.
"Mamma," she cried, "what _do_ you think? David says if you haven't any objections, we may each of us have a little garden down there behind the asparagus beds. He'll make them for us, Mamma, he says, and we can plant just what we like in them. O Mamma! don't have any objections--please."
"Will he really?" cried May. "I'll put peppergrass in mine,--and parsley. Dinah says she never has as much parsley as she wants."
"Yes, and little green cucumbers," added Bertha,--"little teeny-weeny ones, for pickles, you know. Dinah is always wishing she could get them, but David never sends in any but big ones. O Mamma! do say yes. It'll be so nice."
"Cucumbers! peppergrass! Well, you are the strangest children! Why don't you have pinks and pansies and pretty things?"
"Oh, we will, and make bouquets for you, Mamma; only we thought of the useful things first."
"Somehow you always do think of useful things first," murmured Mrs. Frisbie. "However, have the gardens if you like. I'm sure I don't care."
The children's thanks were cut short by the click of a latch-key in the hall-door.
"There's Papa!" cried Bertha; and, like three arrows dismissed from the string, the children were off to greet him. It was always a joy to have Papa come home.
He was looking grave as he opened the door, but his face lit up at once at the sight of his little girls. Papa's face without a smile upon it would have seemed a strange sight indeed to that household. It did cross May's mind that evening that the smiles were not so merry as usual, and that Papa seemed tired; but no one else noticed it, either then or on the days that followed.
Bubbles are pretty things, but the keeping them in air grows wearisome after a while. About this time the rainbow bubble set afloat by the kind Fairy for the sleeping Prince began to misbehave itself. Contrary winds seized it; it flew wildly, now here, now there; and, instead of sailing steadily, it was first up, then down, then up again, but more down than up. Prince John blew his hardest and did his best to keep it from sinking; for he knew, as we all do, that once let a bubble touch the earth, and all is over,--its glittering wings collapse,--they fly no more.