"Keep it that way," said Mrs. Bates, impressively. "Don't ever change--no matter how many engagements and appointments and letters and dates you come to have. You'll never spend a happy day afterwards. Tutors are bad enough--but, thank goodness, my boys are past that age. And men servants are bad enough--every time I want to stir in my own house I seem to have a footman on each toe and a butler standing on my train; however, people in our position--well, Granger insists, you know. But Minnie Peters--Minnie Peters is the worst of all. Every so often"--in a low voice and with her eye on the door--"she has one of her humble days, and then I want to die. That was what was the matter before you came--I didn't really mean to seem cross to you. I just have to take her and shake her and say, 'Now, Minnie Peters, how can you be so bad to me? How can you think I would do anything to hurt your feelings, when your mother was my very best friend? Why are you always looking for a chance to find a slight, when'--Oh, thanks, thanks!"--Miss Peters having appeared with the check. Mrs. Bates clapped on the signature at her little old desk. "There, my child. And good-luck to the club-room. "And now business is over," she continued. "Do you like my posies?" She nodded towards the window where, thanks to the hair-brush, a row of flowers in a long narrow box blew about in the draught. "Asters?" "No, no, no! But I hoped you'd guess asters. They're chrysanthemums--you see, fashion will penetrate even here. But they're the smallest and simplest I could find. What do I care for orchids and American beauties, and all those other expensive things under glass? How much does it please me to have two great big formal beds of gladiolus and foliage plants in the front yard, one on each side of the steps? Still, with our position, I suppose it can't be helped. No; what I want is a bed of portulacca, and some cypress vines running up strings to the top of a pole. As soon as I get poor enough to afford it I'm going to have a lot of phlox and London pride and bachelor's buttons out there in the back yard, and the girls can run their clotheslines somewhere else." "It's hard to keep flowers in a city," said Jane. "I know it is. At our old house we had such a nice little rosebush in the front yard. I hated so to leave it behind--one of those little yellow brier-roses. No, it wasn't yellow; it was just--'yaller.' And it always scratched my nose when I tried to smell it. But oh, child"--wistfully--"if I could only smell it now!" "Couldn't you have transplanted it?" asked Jane, sympathetically. "I went back the very next day after we moved out, with a peach-basket and a fire-shovel. But my poor bush was buried under seven feet of yellow sand. To-day there's seven stories of brick and mortar. So all I've got from the old place is just this furniture of ma's and the wall-paper." "The wall-paper?"