ness. After many discouragements she assured herself that she had at last been successful. She believed that when the buds of a certain plant opened they would prove to be tinged with sapphire. She attended this specimen with the greatest care, spraying it to dishearten vermin, watering it, fertilizing its roots, and searching the ground about the bulb for noxious grubs. On the morning on which she expected the buds to burst open, arising at five o'clock, she repaired to her garden to personally observe the thrilling spectacle. Towards seven, when the sun was high enough so that one might feel its warmth, her old father, now eighty-seven, heard her call not once, but again and again. As he drew on his clothes with some effort, her joyful voice came from the garden crying, Pa! Pa! At last he was ready to join her. Grasping his cane he limped with difficulty down the stairs and out to the garden. Twenty yards away Emma Flummerfelt waved her arms triumphantly while she shouted, Pa, I've got it! I've got the blue dahlia! She seemed beside herself with happiness. He hobbled on down the path to her side. Near-sighted as he was, he was not colour-blind and he had no trouble in discerning that the flower in question was a violent brick-red. Emma Flummerfelt was quite mad.
