on my left and the elderly party on my right resented being
separated by my person. Conversation between E. P. on right, and E. P.
on left scintillated across my soup, thus:

"How you feel this evening Mis' Maurer, h'm?"

"Don't ask me."

"No wonder you got rheumatism. My room was like a ice-house all day.
Yours too?"

"I don't complain any more. Much good it does. Barley soup again? In my
own home I never ate it, and here I pay my good money and get four time
a week barley soup. Are those fresh cucumbers? M-m-m-m. They haven't
stood long enough. Look at Mis' Miller. She feels good this evening. She
should feel good. Twenty-five cents she won at bridge. I never seen how
that woman is got luck."

I choked, gasped, and fled.

Back in my own mausoleum once more I put things in order, dragged my
typewriter stand into the least murky corner under the bravest gas jet
and rescued my tottering reason by turning out a long letter to Norah.
That finished, my spirits rose. I dived into the bottom of my trunk for
the loose sheets of the book-in-the-making, glanced over the last three
or four, discovered that they did not sound so maudlin as I had feared,
and straightway forgot my gloomy surroundings in the fascination of
weaving the tale.

In the midst of my fine frenzy there came a knock at the door. In the
hall stood the anemic little serving maid who had attended me at dinner.
She was almost eclipsed by a huge green pasteboard box.

"You're Mis' Orme, ain't you? This here's for you."

The little white-cheeked maid hovered at the threshold while I lifted
the box cover and revealed the perfection of the American beauty buds
that lay there, all dewy and fragrant. The eyes of the little maid were
wide with wonder as she gazed, and because I had known flower-hunger I
separated two stately blossoms from the glowing cluster and held them
out to her.

"For me!" she gasped, and brought her lips down to them, gently.
Then--"There's a high green jar downstairs you can have to stick your
flowers in. You ain't got nothin' big enough in here, except your water
pitcher. An' putting these grand flowers in a water pitcher--why, it'd
be like wearing a silk dress over a flannel petticoat, wouldn't it?"

When the anemic little boarding-house slavey with the beauty-loving soul
had fetched the green jar, I placed the shining stems in it with gentle
fingers. At the bottom of the box I found a card that read: "For it is
impossible to live