Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/245

 with great subtlety the notable advantages—even from the artistic point of view—of the approaching spring when experienced in the city, in comparison with that be-rhymed season’s vaunted country beauties, startled more than one person.

“Just because they’re more delicate, just because you must look harder to discover them, just because you must get as much from a pot of hyacinths on the Avenue as from a whole field of primroses in the backwoods, you know,” she concluded, and the little circle nodded sagely and congratulated themselves on an unpublished paragraph.

“I don’t agree with you, Mrs. Ranger,” said Aunt Ju-ju flatly, to the absolute amazement of her nieces and the tolerant amusement of the assembly. “I guess you haven’t lived in the country much, or you wouldn’t talk so. And primroses don’t grow in fields here, anyway. If you could see my hyacinths and crocuses