Women in the Far East, as a rule, 

 cannot read or write, and by them the 

 language of flowers is studied, for by 

 its means may be told a whole love 

 story, a warning may be given, or even 

 so tame a thing as a message of friend- 

 ship expressed. Not only in these 

 summer lands may a gentle heart be 

 swayed by the sentiment which lies in 

 the cup of a flower. 



In a quaint old annual bound in 

 green and gold, much scored with faint 

 pencil lines, about verses of sentiment, 

 I found the language of the lilac to be 

 " unrequited love." Pressed between 

 the pages were a few lilac blossoms 

 made into a little chain after the fan- 

 ciful manner of children. So dry and 

 withered were the flowers that they 

 fairly fell apart in dust as they were 

 turned over. There was the single 

 name "Aretheuse" on the fly-leaf. 



Were the tiny chain and the shabby 

 138 



