2H 
THE LADIES* FLORAL CABINET 
observation. The swarm who have scampered out, come 
back in a noisy gallop to say dinner is ready. 
We are quite an imposing procession as we go to the 
dining-room, the swarm bringing up the rear. 
The room is large, and its appointments handsome 
even elegant. In everything pertaining to this house, 
hold there is evidence of profuse expenditure and unob¬ 
jectionable taste, reudered futile by carelessness and 
neglect. On the table, splendid with silver, there is an 
abundant dinner, faultlessly prepared. Yet the cover 
of the grand silver coffee-urn is missing, and the smiling 
mistress of the house is but dimly visible through the 
mist. 
The somewhat disorderly meal is over at last, and 
during the afternoon, when we repose in our airy, mat¬ 
ting covered chamber, with wreaths of climbing roses 
about the windows, filling the room with their spicy 
sweetness. Madame grows confidential and confides to 
me her amazement, that " Kcin-tnc-i-aus" should eat 
bread hot enough to burn one's fingers. 
“ Tls sont sal-aman-ders she says. 
•• Ruth," rays Cousin David at tea, "how would Ma¬ 
dame and yourself like to drive over to the mines to¬ 
night? Yot to the mines, exactly, but to the miner's 
church. There is a revival going on over there, which 
makes the welkin ring, so I've been told. I have not 
attended. The drive will be pleasant, and you may be 
amused by the new types of humanity which you will see 
there. I fancy you have never seen people like them. 
What say you?" 
“Pardonne! I ville not go: I vilJe stay wiz ze little 
ones" hastily from Madame. 
She has not the remotest intention of expressing ob¬ 
stinacy or rudeness. Madame comes of a nation which 
calls its mother-in-law “beautiful mother," and is the 
politest of her polite nation. Madame's inflections are 
singularly unfortunate, that is all. 
But it is not because of these inflections that I fix my 
eyes upon Madame's face, sternly, suspiciously, and see 
it grow red under its own brownness. 
Madame’s nation is polite, but not Protestant; and 
her persistent avoidance of Protestant churches arouses 
suspicions of the Scarlet Woman’s lurking influence. 
Madame and I have discussed this point fluently, not to 
say hotly; hence the flush upon Madame’s quaint little 
countenance. I declare “I shall bo delighted to go,” 
with such aggressive firmness that Cousin David is 
puzzled. 
Then I cast a glance “stern and high,” upon poor 
little Madame, who meets it with an imploring, depre¬ 
cating one: and of a sudden I realize what a narrow¬ 
minded. bigoted dragon I am. 
“Wait for me at the door, cousin,” Mrs. Easton says, 
as we leave the tea-table. “ It’s cooler at the front door. 
I will be out as soon as I can make preparations for the 
drive." 
I find Marguerite sitting at the front door. She raises 
her beautiful eyes, with a faint smile, as I sit down upon 
the step above her, but does not speak. 
How ineffably beautiful the girl is! And men say 
women never see a woman’s beauty. We see it often 
almost always, it must be admitted, with such sharp 
pangs of envy, such bitter jealousy and heart-burning as 
forbid a look of admiration. But, not see! We note, 
with discerning appraisement of its value, its power, 
each individual one of the silken lashes round beauty’s 
eyes! 
How beautiful Marguerite's lashes are—dark, long, 
and curling ! The girl's dark eyes have gone across the 
Ohio—into "Egypt,"—where the sun is just sinking out. 
of sight, beyond the ghostly cottonwoods which line 
the Illinois shore. Gorgeous banners of orange and 
scarlet hang in the western sky, and the vivid hues 
roseate and golden, fall upon the girl’s face, fleckless, 
flawless, in its young beauty—its ivory pallor, its scarlet 
lips, its glorious eyes, “lint-white locks,” curling fluffily 
round tliis marvelous face, under the brim of a broad 
white hat: a white muslin gown, a lace fichu simply 
crossed, motionless, folded hands. 
(to be continued.) 
THE PETUNIA CURE. 
Mbs. H. M. Lewis, of TheWestem Farmer, has writ¬ 
ten pleasantly and suggestively of a discouraged young 
woman, who, having wotoe than wasted her substance 
on doctors and druggists, at last had the good fortune 
to meet a true friend of sense, who plainly told her she 
had fooled away time and money enough in the demor¬ 
alizing atmosphere of medicine, shut out from the full¬ 
ness and life of God’s sunshine and pure air. So flori¬ 
culture was prescribed as a certain and pleasant 
panacea: 
“ Try cultivating the Petunia in the highest style of 
art. Search the catalogues and get the best seeds and 
plants. After that, prepare the soil; let it be rich leaf 
mould, and guano. Stir and work it all yourself, and 
before the summer is over you will be as well as any 
of us.” 
In sheer desperation, and with feeble faith, she acted 
on this hint, advanced by easy stages, and is now 
healthy and happy, and, naturally enough, enthusiastic 
about the chosen plant which was the agent of her 
rescue. 
“ First, she obtained the best possible seeds of single 
varieties; next, purchased from the greenhouse young 
plants and cuttings of double and semi-double varieties. 
These were put out in the garden as soon as weather 
permitted in spring, and when the flowers appeared, if 
one of the inferior quality was seen, it was ruthlessly 
pulled up. In this way she succeeded in getting only 
true, free-blossoming, brilliant flowers. They showed 
themselves in many shades of rose-color, in brown, 
pink, purple, crimson, white, dark violet, and three 
varieties of green—one of them of great size. Some 
were fringed, others blotched, striped and bordered, 
while others were covered with a network of purple, 
green, or brown. Some of the flowers were as small as 
a ten-cent piece, others as large as a Hollyhock; and one 
year she originated four varieties of double ones—one a 
pinkish flesh color that would have been a treasure had 
