S4 FLORAL COJVVERSAT/OiV. 
ful to most' of us, but it seemed to have the strongest and 
the strangest influence upoh 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 
■ijok. Sometimes she would laugh almost hysterically, 
and sometimes, my wife told me, she would come to her 
m 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 dart, 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, 1 was quite certain that I knew 
them. I almost ran the resl 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 Phyllis, to 
