_The Lady:_ "Yes, I see." She glances at the rear of the shop, where the floor is littered with the leaves and petals of flowers, and sprays of fern and evergreen. A woman, followed by a belated smell of breakfast, which gradually mingles with the odor of the plants, comes out of a door there, and begins to gather the larger fragments into her apron. The lady turns again, and looks at the jars and vases of cut flowers in the window, and on the counter. "What I can't understand is how you know just the quantity of flowers to buy every day. You must often lose a good deal." _The Florist:_ "It gomes out about rhighdt, nearly always. When I get left, sometimes, I can chenerally work dem off on funerals. Now, that bic orter hat I just fill, that wass a funeral. It usedt up all the flowers I hat ofer from yesterday." _The Lady:_ "Don't speak of it! And the flowers, are they just the same for funerals?" _The Florist:_ "Yes, rhoces nearly always. Whidte ones." _The Lady:_ "Well, it is too dreadful. I am not going to have roses, whatever I have." After a thoughtful pause, and a more careful look around the shop: "Mr. Eichenlaub, why wouldn't orchids do?" _The Florist:_ "Well, they would be bretty dtear. You couldn't make any show at all for less than fifteen tollars." _The Lady_, with a slight sigh: "No, orchids wouldn't do. They are fantastic things, anyway, and they are not very effective, as you say. Pinks, anemones, marguerites, narcissus--there doesn't seem to be any great variety, does there?" _The Florist_, patiently: "There will be more, lader on." _The Lady:_ "Yes, there will be more sun, later on. But now, Mr. Eichenlaub, what do you think of plants in pots, set around?" _The Florist:_ "Balmss?" _The Lady_, vaguely: "Yes, palms." _The Florist:_ "Balmss would to. But there would not be very much golor." _The Lady:_ "That is true; there would be no color at all, and my rooms certainly need all the color I can get into them. Yes, I shall have to have roses, after all. But not white ones!" _The Florist:_ "Chacks?" _The Lady:_ "No; Jacks are too old-fashioned. But haven't you got any other very dark rose? I should like something almost black, I believe." _The Florist,_ setting a vase of roses on the counter before her: "There is the Matame Hoste." _The Lady,_ bending over the roses, and touching one of them with the tip of her gloved finger: "Why, they _are_ black, almost! They are nearly as black as black pansies. They are really wonderful!" She stoops over and inhales their fragrance. "Delicious! They are beautiful, but"--abruptly--"they are hideous. Their color makes me creep. It is so unnatural for a rose. A rose--a rose ought to be--rose-colored! Have you no rose-colored roses? What are those light pink ones there in the window?"