" He was becoming excited, like a war horse scenting battle from
afar, and forgot himself. "The Lilium Giganteum--I don't know whether
you've ever seen one, miss--but if you did, it'd almost take your breath
away. A Lilium that grows twelve feet high and more, and has a flower
like a great snow-white trumpet, and the scent pouring out of it so that
it floats for yards. There's a place where I could grow them so that
you'd come on them sudden, and you'd think they couldn't be true."
"Grow them, Kedgers, begin to grow them," said Miss Vanderpoel. "I have
never seen them--I must see them."
Kedgers' low, deprecatory chuckle made itself heard again,
"Perhaps I'm going too fast," he said. "It would take a good bit of
expense to do it, miss. A good bit."
Then Miss Vanderpoel made--and she made it in the simplest
matter-of-fact manner, too--the startling remark which, three hours
later, all Stornham village had heard of. The most astounding part of
the remark was that it was uttered as if there was nothing in it which
was not the absolutely natural outcome of the circumstances of the case.
"Expense which is proper and necessary need not be considered," she
said. "Regular accounts will be kept and supervised, but you can have
all that is required.
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