Miss Smith repressed her curiosity, believing that Marian was the little girl the Goldings were to meet that day. "It's everything to have a name," said she. "Yes, but I'd like some relatives," Marian explained, "some real sisters and cousins and aunts of my own." "Why don't you do as Hiawatha did?" Miss Smith suggested. "You mean play all the birds and squirrels are my brothers and sisters? I think I will. I'll be little sister to the dandelion." Miss Smith laughed with Marian. "I'll do the same thing," said she, "and if we are sisters to the dandelion, you must be my little sister and I'm your big sister and all the wild flowers belong to our family." "It's a game," agreed Marian. "I suppose little Indian children picked dandelions in the spring-time before Columbus discovered America." "There were no dandelions then to pick," Miss Smith remonstrated. "The plant was brought here by white men. Its name is from the French, meaning lion's tooth." "I don't see anything about a dandelion to mean lion's tooth," objected Marian; "do you?" "No, I don't, Marian, nor does any one know exactly how it came by its name. Some believe it was given to the plant because its root is so white; then again, in the old days lions were pictured with teeth yellow as dandelion blossoms. The explanation I like best is that the dandelion was named after the lion because the lion is the animal that used to represent the sun, and all flowers named after him are flowers of the sun." "Do you know anything more about dandelions?" questioned Marian. "If I don't," said Miss Virginia Smith, smiling as she spoke, "it isn't because there is nothing more to learn. Did you ever hear the dandelion called the shepherd's clock?" "No, Miss Smith, never. Why should they call it that?" "Because the dandelion is said to open at five and close at eight." "Well!" exclaimed Marian, "I guess you could write a composition about dandelions." "Possibly," was the laughing response. "As far as that goes, Marian, there isn't a thing that grows that hasn't a history if you take the time and trouble to hunt it up." "Skunk cabbages?" suggested Marian. "Yes, 'skunk cabbages,'" was the reply. "What flowers do you suppose are related to it?" "I don't know, unless Jack-in-the-pulpit, maybe, is it?" "That's right, guess again." "I'll have to give up, Miss Smith. I never saw anything except Jack-in-the-pulpit that looks a bit like old skunk cabbage." "The calla lily, Marian, what do you think of that?" "I don't know, Miss Smith, but such things happen, of course, because Winnie Raymond has a horrible looking old Uncle Pete, and Winnie's awful pretty herself. But how do you know so much about plants?" "By reading and observation, Marian." "Are there many books about wild flowers, Miss Smith?"