MY LADY DAHLIA TAKES THE AIR 



ALL the neighborhood is topsy-turvy, and weeds 

 growing full speed in the borders, because it is 

 dahlia time. The fanciers have assembled on street 

 corners, talked long and late under the front windows, 

 and declared their red-letter day of the year has come, 

 because one among them has bred a new dahlia not in the 

 calendar. It is unique; it does not match any heard-of 

 description. 



The dahlia passion is not half so ridiculous as some 

 others, as it does effect an annual climax. The flower 

 makes its appeal to the masculine sense that is, more 

 men than women may be counted among the dahlia en- 

 thusiasts and next to tulip madness is the speculation in 

 dahlia bulbs in a quiet way by the very persons you would 

 not suspect. 



Friend K., coolest of business men, has haunted a cor- 

 ner in his yard since he planted the dusty tubers in the 

 spring. It leaked out through one of the children that a 

 box of dahlia roots had come from France, but not a word 

 was said of the matter. A knot of pink string dis- 

 tinguished one green stalk from the clump of a dozen, and 

 1 60 



