the new bed."

"At the back?"

"Yes, indeed; it's high enough to look over almost everything else we
are likely to have. It blossoms early."

"To be a companion to the tulips and hyacinths."

"Have you started any peony seeds?"

"The Reine Hortense. Grandmother advised that. They're well up now."

"I'd plant a few seeds in your bed, too. If you can get a good stand of
perennials--flowers that come up year after year of their own accord--it
saves a lot of trouble."

"Those pinks are perennials, aren't they? They come up year after year
in Grandmother's garden."

"Yes, they are, and so is the columbine. You ought to put that in."

"But it isn't pink. We got some in the woods the other day. It is red,"
objected Dorothy.

"The columbine has been 'burbanked.' There's a pink one among the
cultivated kinds. They're larger than the wild ones and very lovely."

"Mother has some. Hers are called the 'Rose Queen,'" said Margaret.
"There are yellow and blue ones, too."

"Your grandmother can give you some pink Canterbury bells that will
blossom this year. They're biennials, you know."

"Does that mean they blossom every two years?"

"Not exactly. It means that the ones you planted in your flats will
only make wood and leaves this year and won't put out any flowers until
next year. That's all these pink ones of your grandmother's did last
season; this summer they're ready to go into your bed and be useful."

"Our seedlings are blue, anyway," Ethel Blue reminded the others. "They
must be set in the blue bed."

"How about sweet williams?" asked Mr. Emerson. "Don't I remember some in
your yard?"

"Mother planted some last year," answered Roger, "but they didn't
blossom."

"They will this year. They're perennials, but it takes them one season
to make up their minds to set to work. There's an annual that you might
sow now that will be blossoming in a few weeks. It won't last over,
though."

"Annuals die down at the end of the first season. I'm getting these
terms straightened in my so-called mind," laughed Dorothy.

"You said you had a bleeding heart--"

"A fine old perennial," exclaimed Ethel Brown, airing her new
information.

"--and pink candy-tuft for the border and foxgloves for the back; are
those old plants or seedlings?"

"Both."

"Then you're ready for anything! How about snapdragons?"

"I thought snapdragons were just common weeds," commented James.

"They've been improved, too, and now they a