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Rh pansies. With the dahlia bulbs Florimel executed a solo march, formal steps and courtly gestures its ritual.

So the morning went on, filled with work, but work brightened to play, and elevated close to poetry by all sorts of curious fancies. Mary, Jane, and Florimel were serious, almost reverent in their fantastic ceremonies. Though they were almost grown up, the association of these things with childish faith made the day and its events to them something between fantasy and reality.

Mrs. Garden watched them, participating in what they did, as far as she was able, with the keenest enjoyment and no less wonder. This curious day brought her into touch with her children’s lost childhood. She realized what clever little beings they had been, developing in their own way, set apart by their father’s theories of education. The pang with which she realized this, her pride in them and regret for the days in which she had been separated from them, days never to be recovered, showed her how far she had travelled from the old Lynette Devon, whose joy had been the public; how far toward Lynette Garden, whose increasing joy was in being her beautiful and gifted children’s mother.