complete attention. They represented to her her only excuse for existence. The neighbours, indeed, began to note a curious phenomenon: Emma Flummerfelt held conversation with her dahlias! She could be heard now whispering to them, now chiding them, now discussing local gossip with them in an audible tone. With infinite patience and no little success she began to experiment with the creation of new varieties. It was at this period that she produced the dahlia which has since become popular and staple: the Emma Flummerfelt, a variety which soon became her favourite. She showered words of love on its blossoms and was even seen to kiss them. Blue ribbons fluttered in from various shows, ribbons won by this hardy newcomer. Emma Flummerfelt pinned the ribbons on her Mother Hubbard and returned to her garden.
When she was forty-seven she begot a new ambition. She determined to accomplish that which no dahlia culturist had yet succeeded in accomplishing: she determined to create a blue dahlia, not a purple blue or a magenta blue, but a blue of the gentian or the larkspur. For several years Emma Flummerfelt worked to solve this problem, selecting freak flowers which contained a semblance of the sought-for colour and treating their bulbs with especial tender
