54 FLORAL CONVERSATION. 
ful to most of us, but it seemed to have the strongest and 
the strangest influence upon our sister, Phyllis. She would 
no longer speak of that which had been her one topic of 
conversation. She had a nervous manner and an anxious 
look. Sometimes she would laugh almost hysterically, 
and sometimes, my wife told me, she would come to her 
in a paroxysm of grief and tears, for which she would 
assign no cause. 
Then another strange incident happened to me. The 
evening before our annual county flower show, I had been 
occupied until it was almost dark, in tying and packing a 
collection of stove and greenhouse plants, which I was 
going to exhibit, when, in taking a short cut from the 
kitchen gardens across the park to my home, I passed over 
the long walk, which is a continuation of the grand terrace, 
and extends for nearly a mile through our woodland 
grounds ; ten yards from me, but in such earnest conver¬ 
sation that they never heard my steps, I saw two figures, 
and, dim as the light was, I was quite certain that I knew 
them. I almost ran the rest of my way, and, in a fever of 
excitement, I whispered to my wife, “ Lady Alice has sent 
him the leaf.” 
She received my information not only with disbelief, but 
derision, and next day she sent for her sister Ptiyllis, to 
