The Rescue of an Old Place 



ers. It is absurd to imagine that a custom 

 so universal is based on any sham or pass- 

 ing fashion. The desire for display is 

 prevalent enough, beyond question, but if 

 any one doubts whether the admiration 

 for flowers is an acquired taste because 

 it is fashionable to wear them let him 

 carry a handful of them through a city 

 street among groups of children, where 

 unsophisticated nature will find expres- 

 sion. The keen delight of these little 

 ones, who will always accept such a 

 shows that the affection for flowers is an 

 original instinct, which is as strong in this 

 country as it is anywhere. Fashionable 

 freaks and follies pass away, and flowers 

 would have their brief day like any other 

 craze, if the regard for them was artifi- 

 cial or fictitious. The flower-dealers of 

 the country need have no apprehension 

 as to the future of their industry. It is 

 based on one of the elementary wants of 

 our nature. Flowers will be loved until 

 the constitution of the human mind is 

 radically changed 



To those writers who maintain, quoting 

 Miss Wilkins's stories to prove it, that 

 '74 



