but
unshakable feminine conviction.

VII

SYLVIA LATHAM

Sylvia came that afternoon well before dark, a trim footman following
from the brougham with her suitcase and an enormous box of forced early
spring flowers, hyacinths, narcissi, tulips, English primroses,
lilies-of-the-valley, white lilacs, and some yellow wands of Forsythia,
"with Mrs. Latham's compliments to Miss Dorman."

"What luxury!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, turning out the flowers upon the
table in the tea room where she kept her window garden, "and how pale and
spindling my poor posies look in comparison. Are these from the Bluffs?"

"Oh no, from Newport," replied Sylvia. "There is to be no glass at the
Bluffs, only an outdoor garden, mamma says, that will not be too much
trouble to keep up. Mrs. Jenks-Smith was dining at the house last night,
and told me what a lovely garden you have, Mrs. Evan, and I thought
perhaps, if we do not go to California to meet father, but go to Oaklands
early in April, you might be good enough to come up and talk my garden
over with me. The landscape architect has, I believe, made a plan for the
beds and walks about the house, but I am to have an acre or two of
ground on the opposite side of the highway quite to myself.

"Oh, please don't squeeze those tulips into the tight high vases, Aunt
Lavinia," she said, going behind that lady and giving her a hug with one
arm, while she rescued the tulips with the other hand; for Miss Lavinia,
feeling hurried and embarrassed by the quantity of flowers, was jumbling
them at random into very unsuitable receptacles.

"May I arrange the dinner table," Sylvia begged, "like a Dutch garden,
with a path all around, beds in the corners, and those dear little silver
jugs and the candlesticks for a bower in the middle?

"A month ago," she continued, as she surveyed the table at a glance and
began to work with charming enthusiasm, "mamma was giving a very
particular dinner. She had told the gardener to send on all the flowers
that could possibly be cut, so that there were four great hampers full;
but owing to some mistake Darley, the florist, who always comes to
decorate the rooms, did not appear. We telephoned, and the men flew
about, but he could not be found, and mamma was fairly pale with anxiety,
as Mrs. Center, who gives the swell dinner dances, was to dine with her
for the first time, and it was important to make an impression, so that
_I_ might be invited to one or possibly