, all
so different in shape.

"The _leaves_ are very well," said Katey, "but not the _flowers_. I soon
left off pressing them, for the poor flowers looked so wretched, so
unlike the living ones, that I did not care to go on."

"I have felt just the same about some of the things in the museums in
London," said Mary. "They may interest grown-up people, but not us. They
are so dried and withered, that they don't give you much of an idea of
what they were in life. Who would ever guess what a man was like by
seeing a mummy? and some of the things are no better than mummies."

"I am very fond of flowers," said Katey: "they look lovely in their own
places where they grow, but just like mummies, as you say, dried up and
stuck upon paper."

"I'll tell you what: we are going to have tea on the lawn, and after tea
we'll ask mother to show us some sketches she has made of wild flowers.
Now they do give you a real notion of the flowers themselves."

Katey went to the window, and said, "Oh! there is Sarah bringing out the
table for tea already. Let us go downstairs into the garden."

So they all went down to watch Sarah lay the cloth, and put the bread
and butter and cake on the table, then the milk and sugar, and last of
all she brought the teapot.

"Here comes Aunt Lizzie," said Annie; and all the children joined in the
request that when tea was over she would show them her paintings of
flowers.

"To be sure I will," she said; "and we will look at them out of doors as
soon as the tea-table is cleared."

"I _do_ like having tea out of doors," said Annie; "we can never have
it in London, however hot it is."

[Illustration: THE TEA ON THE LAWN.
_Page 82._]

"We cannot have it for very long in the country either," said Aunt
Lizzie, "because our weather is so changeable. Sometimes we have cold
winds with bright sunshine, or it rains, or the grass is damp. Still,
during the long summer days we can frequently manage it; but it is not
always summer even in the country."

"Do the woods seem very dreary to you in the winter, aunt?"

"No; I have known and loved them all my life, and they have a very
different look in winter from what they have in summer."

"But they look so bare when the leaves are gone," said Annie.

"Yes; but you can see the shapes of the trunks and branches, down to the
little twigs. You can tell the name of the tree from its skeleton, for
each has its own form--the sturdy oak, the stiff poplar, the droo