"I asked Perkins to get out the Dutch silver, toys and all, that mamma has been collecting ever since I can remember, and bring down a long narrow mirror in a plain silver frame that backs my mantel shelf. Then I begged mother to go for her beauty sleep and let me wrestle with the flowers, also to be sure to wear her new Van Dyck gown to dinner. "This was not according to her plan, but she went perforce. I knew that she felt extremely dubious, and, trembling at my rashness, I set at work to make a Dutch flower garden, with the mirror for a canal down the centre. Perkins and his understudies, Potts and Parker, stood watching me with grim faces, exchanging glances that seemed to question my sanity when I told Parker to go out to the corner where I had seen workmen that afternoon dump a load of little white pebbles, such as are used in repairing the paving, and bring me in a large basketful. But when the garden was finished, with the addition of the little Delft windmills I brought home, and the family of Dutch peasant dolls that we bought at the Antwerp fair, Perkins was absolutely moved to express his approval." "What effect did the garden have upon the dance invitations?" asked Miss Lavinia, highly amused, and also more eager to hear of the doings of society than she would care to confess. "Excellent! Mrs. Center asked mother who her decorator was, and said she should certainly employ him; which, it seems, was a compliment so rare that it was equivalent to the falling of the whole social sky at my feet, Mr. Bell said, who let the secret out. I was invited to the last two of the series,--for they come to a conspicuous stop and turn into theatre parties when Lent begins,--and I really enjoyed myself, the only drawback being that so few of the really tall and steady men care for dancing. Most of my partners were very short, and loitered so, that I felt top-heavy, and it reminded me of play-days, when I used to practise waltzing with the library fire tongs. I dislike long elaborate dinners, though mamma delights in them, and says one may observe so much that is useful, but I do like to dance with a partner who moves, and not simply progresses in languid ripples, for dancing is one of the few indoor things that one is allowed to do for oneself. "Now, Aunt Lavinia, you see the garden is all growing and blowing, and there are only enough tulips left for the Rookwood jars in the library," Sylvia said, stepping back to look at the table, "and a few for us to wear. Lilies-of-the-valley for you, pink tulips for you, Mrs. Evan,--they will soon close, and look like pointed rosebuds,--yellow daffies to match my gown, and you must choose for the two men I do not know. I'll take a tuft of these primroses for Mr. Bradford, and play they grew wild. We always joked him about these flowers at college until 'The Primrose' came to be his nickname among ourselves. Why?