CHAPTER X 



THE LADY DECORATOR AND THE FLOWER-GIRL 



" Pink, primrose, valley-lily, clove-carnation 5 

 Red rose and white rose, wall-flower, mignonette, 

 The daisies all — these be her recreation. 

 Her gaudies these." 



During the rush of the London season many hostesses, 

 much as they love to have their houses made sweet and 

 beautiful with flowers, find it impossible to attend to the 

 work of decoration themselves ; they must entrust the 

 task to others. To meet the want of chatelaines such 

 as these, there is the lady decorator, with her train of 

 flower-fairies, ready to fill the breach. 



And they will not only bring us flowers ; lights, too, 

 they can adjust at will, not fire-flies but electric, which, 

 after all, are most to be depended on. 



Arranging flowers is one of those things that every 

 woman in the world thinks nobody can do but herself ; 

 she is as much addicted to self-esteem in this direction 

 as a man is over mending the fire ; and who does not 

 enjoy the pleasing excitement of setting out the flowers 

 for a ball or dinner-party ? The very smell of the wet 

 moss, the cool feel of the stalks, the bunches of pliant fern, 

 the baskets ready to be unpacked, every circumstance is in 

 itself a pleasure, but it is not so nice if you are hurried 

 and interrupted. Better by far is it for very busy people 

 to think out the scheme of decoration with one of the 

 above-named fairies, who will appear exactly at the right 



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