be an attraction to my hall and perhaps I shall
want to pay you for coming," she added good naturedly.

She pointed out to them the exact spot on which they might place their
flowers and agreed to let them arrange the flowers daily for her rooms
and tables and to pay them for it.

"I have no flowers for cutting this summer," she said, "and I've been
bothered getting some every day. It has taken George's time when he
should have been doing other things."

"We'll do it for the rent," offered Ethel Blue.

"No, I've been buying flowers outside and using my own time in arranging
them. It's only fair that I should pay you as I would have paid some one
long ago if I could have found the right person. I stick to the
percentage arrangement for the rent."

On the way home the girls realized with some discomfiture that without
consulting Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith they had made an arrangement that
would keep them away from home a good deal and put them in a rather
exposed position.

"What do you suppose Mother and Aunt Louise will say?" asked Ethel Brown
doubtfully.

"I think they'll let us do it. They know we need the money for Rose
House just awfully, and they like Miss Foster and her mother--I've heard
Aunt Marion say they were so brave about undertaking the Inn."

Her voice quavered off into uncertainty, for she realized as she spoke
that what a young woman of Miss Foster's age did in connection with her
mother was a different matter from a business venture entered into alone
by girls of fourteen.

The fact that the business venture was to be carried on under the eye of
Mrs. Foster and her daughter, ladies whom Mrs. Morton knew well and
respected and admired, was the turning point in her decision to allow
the girls to conduct the affair which had entered their minds so
suddenly. She and Mrs. Smith went to the Inn and assisted in the
arrangement of the first assortment of flowers and plants, saw to it
that there was a space on the back porch where they could be handled
without the water or vases being in the way of the workers in the Inn,
suggested that an additional sign reading

PLANTS and CUT FLOWERS

be hung below the sign outside and that a card

FOR THE BENEFIT OF ROSE HOUSE

be placed over the table inside, and then went away and left the girls
to manage affairs themselves.

It was while Ethel Blue was drawing the poster to hang over the table
that the "botanist" walked into the hall and strolled o