An inspiration came to Lily one day in this form: There was the greenhouse well stocked with plants, why should it not be a source of profit to them? It had always held a sort of fascination for her. She had watched John for hours, and asked questions innumerable, had even learned how to arrange flowers in different styles, little thinking the knowledge would ever prove useful to her. John had been dismissed, but she felt quite sure that by the aid of books she could care for the plants and realize a sum—with their other sources of income—sufficient for their wants. But there were difficulties in the way of accomplishing this. Her grandfather was a born aristocrat, and held to the belief that a lady, especially a Winthrop, must be hedged about with all sorts of dainty care, must not harden her hands with any manual labor, above all things must not engage in petty traffic like any huckster, in fine, that she was a rare and delicate flower that the winds must not visit too roughly, and that some chivalrous man must guard and cherish, as he had cared for her, and as he meant to do until this horrible thing had come upon them. "No, indeed, she must not think of putting her own hands to such work. If worst had come to worst, and they must make merchandise of the plants, then John must be recalled and the thing done up properly." Poor Lily sighed, and tried to make her unpractical grandfather see that John would swallow up all the profits; but he was inexorable, declaring that as long as he lived she should never thus demean herself. Meanwhile, he should get into some business, he was sure. And now he cast about to see what he could do. Ah, yes, what? His business for forty years had been to direct others. He had been president of a bank and of a railroad company; but such offices are not open to men over seventy. He put pitiful little advertisements in the papers to the effect that "a skilled financier, one of large experience in railroading and banking desired a position." Then growing humbler would come down to "a ready accountant, a skillful penman, wishing a situation," forgetting that his poor old brain could scarcely add a column of figures correctly if life depended upon it, and that the trembling hand could no longer make graceful curves.