He said, "What _is_ the matter, Mary?"
I said, "Oh, Arthur! I've found a book that will tell you all about
mills; and it is the nicest smelling book in the library."
"The nicest _smelling_? What's that got to do with mills?"
"Nothing, of course. But it's bound in russia, and I am so fond of the
smell of russia. But that's nothing. It's a Miller's Dictionary, and
it is in four huge volumes, 'with plates.' I should think you could
look out all about every kind of mill there ever was a miller to."
"If the plates give sections and diagrams"--Arthur began, but I did
not hear the rest, for he started off for the library at once, and I
ran after him.
But when we got Miller's Dictionary on the floor, how he did tease me!
For there was nothing about mills or millers in it. It was a
Gardener's and Botanist's Dictionary, by Philip Miller; and the plates
were plates of flowers, very truly drawn, like the pine tree in Uncle
Charley's Jap. picture. There were some sections too, but they were
sections of greenhouses, not of any kinds of mills or machinery.
The odd thing was that it turned out a kind of help to Arthur after
all. For we got so much interested in it that it roused us up about
our gardens. We are all very fond of flowers, I most of all. And at
last Arthur said he thought that miniature mills were really rather
humbugging things, and it would be much easier and more useful to
build a cold frame to keep choice auriculas and _half-hardies_ in.
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