mness on my side; and, though with a heart beating almost as fast
as her own, if with very different emotions, I led her gently back to
her place, and resting on a cushion just out of reach, began to talk
to her. Choosing as the easiest subject our adventure of yesterday, I
asked what could have induced her to place herself in a situation so
dangerous.

"Do not be angry with me now," she pleaded. "I am exceedingly fond of
flowers; they have been my only amusement except the training of my
pets. You can see how little women have to do, how little occupation
or interest is permitted us. The rearing of rare flowers, or the
creation of new ones, is almost the only employment in which we can
find exercise for such intelligence as we possess. I had never seen
before the flower that grew on that shelf. I believe, indeed, that it
only grows on a few of our higher mountains below the snow-line, and I
was anxious to bring it home and see what could be made of it in the
garden. I thought it might be developed into something almost as
beautiful as that bright _leenoo_ you admired so greatly in my
flower-bed."

"But," said I, "the two flowers are not of the same shape or colour;
and, though I am not learned in botany, I should say hardly belong to
the same family."

"No," she said. "But with care, and with proper management of our
electric apparatus, I accomplished this year a change almost as great.
I can show you in my flower-bed one little white flower, of no great
beauty and conical in shape, from which I have produced in two years
another, saucer-shaped, pink, and of thrice the size, almost exactly
realising an imaginary flower, drawn by my sister-in-law to represent
one of which she had dreamed. We can often produce the very shape,
size, and colour we wish from something that at first seems to have no
likeness to it whatever; and I have been told that a skilful farmer
will often obtain a fruit, or, what is more difficult, an animal, to
answer exactly the ideal he has formed."

"Some of our breeders," I said, "profess to develop a sort of ideal of
any given species; but it takes many generations, by picking and
choosing those that vary in the right direction, to accomplish
anything of the kind; and, after all, the difference between the
original and the improved form is mere development, not essential
change."

She hardly seemed to understand this, but answered--

"The seedling or rootlet would be just like the original