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162 “Oh, I know, Win; I do know, really!” cried the artist. “And I’m happy here, truly! But they used to applaud me so, and call: ‘Lynette! Ah, Lynette, our pet! You can do it, you bet!’ from the galleries, don’t you know; the boys! And the flowers they sent me and the sweets! And it was all as if they liked me, the me back of it all, don’t you know! One can’t help loving all that. But the girls are dear to me, simply dear to me! Indeed I’m grateful!”

Mary put her arm around her with the gesture she used when she saw that her fragile mother was overtired.

“We don’t ‘like’ you, Lynette, our pet!” she whispered. “We love you, as all England could never love you.”

“We don’t send you flowers; we just lay our glorious garden at your feet,” said Jane.

“As to sweets and poems and presents, what’s that? Look at us; you’ve got us here,” Florimel summed up conclusively.

“We think you have all Vineclad, Mrs. Garden,” said Audrey. “We girls are simply crazy over you; crazy, that’s all!”

“Quite enough,” interposed Win heartily, tired of this sort of girlish sentimentality. “You