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THE WISCONSIN LITERARY MAGAZINE
          A FLOWERY ADVENTURE.
                            Mu.
   "Dear Bobby:" (the note ran) "Of course you're goingto
 bring me an Xmas present, and I know just what it's going
 to be. It's going to be a bracelet, isn't it? But, Bobby dear
 dear, do stop and reflect. You've been bringing me brace-
 lets for the past three years. Can't you think of something
 different? I just know you can't, so I'm going to make it
 easy for you.
   "Do you know that I'm just starving for flowers! I haven't
 seen a blooming thing' down here in Edgewater since Au--
 gust. Mother's century plant is positively the only green
 thing on the landscape. Can't you bring me some fine
 American Beauties and forget that annual appointment with
 the jeweler?                  Your loving sister,
                                               RUTH."
  I flipped the note down upon the table rather impatiently.
Hot-house flowers had always been my particular abomina-
tion. In spite of my dislikes, moreover, I did not think for
a moment of disobeying the commands of the letter. Dis-
regarding all that's said about the other fellow's sister, it's a
fellow's own sister that holds the secure place in his affections
after a five month's absence, and he will do much rather than
disappoint her.
  Possibly it was the fact that the note was dated the thir-
teenth of the month, or possibly it was my own concealed
dissatisfaction with my errand, I never knew, but, from the
moment of the note's arrival until my exciting entree at
Edgewater, my flower mission was a chapter of annoyances
and accidents. Misfortune began as I stepped into the hall
to call up the greenhouse. An inadvertent misstep on the
hall rug precipitated me headlong down the front stairway,
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