"'
'The Spaniards are more poetic,' said Aunt Truth, 'for they call it
la copa de oro, the golden cup. Oh, see them yonder! It is like the
Field of the Cloth of Gold.'
The sight would have driven a royal florist mad with joy: a hillside
that was a swaying mass of radiant bloom, a joyous carnival of vivid
colour, in which the thousand golden goblets, turned upward to the
sun, were dancing, and glowing, and shaming out of countenance the
purple and blue and pink masses which surrounded them on every side.
'You know Professor Pinnie told us that every well-informed young
girl should know at least the flora of her own State,' said Jack,
after the excitement had subsided.
'Well, one thing is certain: Professor Pinnie never knew the STATE
of his own flora, or at least he kept his wife sorting and arranging
his specimens all the time; and I think he's a regular old frump,'
said Polly, irreverently, but meeting Aunt Truth's reproving glance,
which brought a blush and a whispered 'Excuse me,' she went on,
'Well, what I mean is, he doesn't know any more than other people,
after all; for he cares for nothing but bushes and herbs and seeds
and shrubs and roots and stamens and pistils; and he can't tell
whether a flower is lovely or not, he is so crazy to find out where
it belongs and tie a tag round it.'
'I must agree with Polly,' laughed Jack. 'Why, I went to ride with
him one day in the Cathedral Oaks, and he made me get off my horse
every five minutes to dig up roots and tie them to the pommel of his
old saddle, so that we came into town looking like moving herbariums.
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