"How did that get there?" asked Christie, with sudden interest in
the flower.
"It dropped when I was setting out the others, took root, and looked
so pretty and comfortable that I left it. These waifs sometimes do
better than the most carefully tended ones: I only dig round them a
bit and leave them to sun and air."
Mr. Power looked at Christie with so much meaning in his face that
it was her turn to color now. But with feminine perversity she would
not own herself mistaken, and answered with eyes as full of meaning
as his own:
"I like the single ones best: double-carnations are so untidy, all
bursting out of the calyx as if the petals had quarrelled and could
not live together."
"The single ones are seldom perfect, and look poor and incomplete
with little scent or beauty," said unconscious David propping up the
thin-leaved flower, that looked like a pale solitary maiden, beside
the great crimson and white carnations near by, filling the air with
spicy odor.
"I suspect you will change your mind by and by, Christie, as your
taste improves, and you will learn to think the double ones the
handsomest," added Mr. Power, wondering in his benevolent heart if
he would ever be the gardener to mix the colors of the two human
plants before him.
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