the slug. The business was presenting a 
serious aspect, but all the better for that— 
she liked a work that made a demand on 
her active energies. There was the large 
southeast chamber—not furnished, as yet, 
and destined for the children's room when 
they shonld be a few years older. It had 
one east and two south windows—the lat¬ 
ter so near together that they were almost 
as good as a bay-window. This room— 
with an air-tight stove in winter—would be 
her place for the rosebud business. 
Fearing that Anton might sniff danger 
in the air if she asked his aid and advice in 
the matter, she resolved to accomplish 
everything herself, and as secretly as pos¬ 
sible. Once the things were established 
and blooming, she could easily slip into 
town once a week at least with a box of 
nosegays, and none but herself and the 
salesman need be the wiser. 
Of course, her first list of rare and de¬ 
sirable roses footed up to an immense 
sum—they always do—but by re-writing it 
a dozen times and dropping out with a sigh 
of regret many a 1 ‘choicest” and “very 
best” sort, she got it reduced to reasonable 
figures and dispatched to a florist. 
She put wide shelves in the windows and 
only pounded her thumb once. They were 
of rough boards, but when covered with 
paper they looked nice as well as substan¬ 
tial. An old croquet-set box fitted the 
east window as if made for it, and in this 
she would grow her violets. 
To her note of inquiry, sent by a neigh¬ 
bor’s trusty boy, the florally inclined drug¬ 
gist replied as follows: “We will take your 
bouquets if nicely arranged and made of 
choice and popular flowers—and pay you 
.a dollar and a half per dozen.” 
This was enouraging, although the differ¬ 
ence between the man’s buying and selling 
prices seemed decidedly large. “Even a 
dollar and a half a week will be much bet¬ 
ter than nothing,” murmured Mrs. Curtis 
to herself; and after reading the note twice 
with a beaming and encouraged smile, she 
tucked it under a flower-pot and went on 
pulverizing and sifting and making ready 
the violet bed in the croquet box. 
“There’s a man at the gate,” announced 
Anton., when he came In to dinner, “with a 
lot of plants, which he says you ordered: 
and there’s $12 to be paid on them.” 
“Certainly! I ordered them, and I am 
prepared to pay the $12,” answered Mrs. 
Curtis rather loftily. She was very tired, 
having made a trip to the woods for leaf- 
mould, besides attending to the butter- 
making and the cooking of an admirable 
dinner—the girl being swallowed up in the 
weekly wash. If she hadn’t been very 
tired and Anton's tone hadn’t jarred upon 
her, she would have answered differently— 
she afterwards thought. 
Anton shrugged his shoulders. “It’s get¬ 
ting unsafe to even mention the word ‘dol¬ 
lar’ to you!” 
“You seemed to fear that you would 
have to pay the $12. I should think you 
might be aware by this time that I don’t 
ask such a thing of you,” and Mrs. Curtis 
sailed away to meet her roses. 
“This is getting perfectly outrageous,” 
muttered Anton to himself, quite blind to 
the neatly spread table and the freshly 
washed and curled children clinging to his 
legs and clamoring for “a dinner kiss,” 
quite blind to all the little nice touches of 
comfort and beauty about the room that 
told of his wife’s busy, patient and careful 
hands. “I wish I’d never married her!” he 
thought, kissing the children very me¬ 
chanically and dumping them into their 
respective chairs. 
I suppose the shocking thing that hap¬ 
pened that afternoon was by no means the 
cause of his wish. But he thought of it all 
the same, with keenest remorse, when he 
was summoned by the frightened Maria to 
come to the house ‘ ‘quick as ever you can, 
Mr. Curtis, for Mrs. Curtis is killed dead!” 
And indeed she seemed as if “killed 
dead,” lying at the foot of the stairs among 
broken flower pots and drooping roses, pale 
and cold as snows, and some blood lying 
in a little pool by her head. 
“You see I heard a heavy fall like, quite 
a spell ago, but the children were having' 
their naps all safe, and I never once 
thought of her falling down stairs—and oh, 
I shall die myself, just at the sight of her!” 
and poor Maria seemed about to faint. 
“Run—tell Peter to take the black colt 
and bring Dr. Gray! Then go for Mrs. 
