TT^VER since I was a little girl I've hoped each 

 *-- spring some nice old uncle from India would 

 send me fifty dollars accompanied by a gruesome 

 threat, such as : " If you use one cent of this money 

 for anything but roses, the first night the east wind 

 blows, a blackbird will come along and nip off your 

 nose ! " But as it hasn't really happened yet, I 

 have to pretend along the last part of April or first 

 of May that it is about to happen, and start to work 

 with pencil and greediness to select the fifty dollars' 

 worth. As the days go by, merging joyous make- 

 believe into saddening reality, my list is lopped, rose 

 by rose, until some desperate night I finally make a 

 neat list of the can't-possibly-be-lived-without roses 

 (numbering perhaps only fifteen) and meekly send it 

 off to the rosarian. 



It is so hard to advise another just what roses to 

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