"Olivia," he said,--and the first word betrayed his relenting,--"Olivia, your sun-dial scheme is not such a bad idea. I should rather like that white-petticoat effect myself. Supposing we say that if between now and next June you don't think of anything you want more, we'll have it."
"Oh, you blessèd angel! What could I want more?"
"Time will show," the blessèd angel replied, retracing his steps toward the house--unaided by angelic wings!
"Yes," Olivia called confidently. "It's the sun-dial that time will show, and afterward--why, the sun-dial will show the time!"--and although he made no sign, she knew there were little puckers of amused approval about her father's mouth.
As if she could ever want anything more than a sun-dial! she thought, while she passed along the borders, harvesting her little crop. She had finished with the hollyhocks, and now she was bending over a bed of withered columbines. And there were the foxglove seeds still clinging. Really, it was almost impossible to keep up. How brilliant the salvia was to-day, and what a brave second blossoming that was of the delphinium, its knightly spurs, metallic blue, gleaming in the sun!
"No," she declared to herself, "there will never be anything so much worth while as the garden. Why, of course there won't; because Nature is the best thing in the world--the very best."
Olivia turned, startled by a voice so near at hand, for she had heard no footfall on the thick turf. There, in the centre of the grass-grown space, stood two comical little midgets, their smutty yet cherubic faces blooming brightly above garments highly coloured and earthy, too, as the autumn garden-beds.
[Illustration: "Please ma'am, will ye gimme a bowkay?"]
"Dear me!" Olivia laughed, "how things do sprout in a garden! Did you come right up out of the ground?"
"Plase, ma'am, a bowkay! Me mudder's sick an' me fader's goned away."
The speaker, a boy of five, stood holding by the hand something in the way of a sister, about two sizes smaller. At Olivia's little joke, which they did not in the least understand, they had both grinned sympathetically, showing rows of diminutive teeth as white and even as snow-berries.
"Bless your little hearts, of course you shall have a bouquet! Come and choose one,"--and taking a hand of each Olivia led them slowly along the brilliant borders.