stream.

There they found those flexible plants, with long swaying stalks, which
made such a lovely effect on hangings, tall, straight reeds, and the
volubilis, whose flower, opening suddenly as if in obedience to a
caprice, resembles a living face, some one looking at you amid the
lovely, quivering foliage. Risler arranged his bouquets artistically,
drawing his inspiration from the very nature of the plants, trying to
understand thoroughly their manner of life, which can not be divined
after the withering of one day.

Then, when the bouquet was completed, tied with a broad blade of grass as
with a ribbon, and slung over Frantz's back, away they went. Risler,
always engrossed in his art, looked about for subjects, for possible
combinations, as they walked along.

"Look there, little one--see that bunch of lily of the valley, with its
white bells, among those eglantines. What do you think? Wouldn't that
be pretty against a sea-green or pearl-gray background?"

But Sidonie cared no more for lilies of the valley than for eglantine.
Wild flowers always seemed to her like the flowers of the poor, something
like her lilac dress.

She remembered that she had seen flowers of a different sort at the house
of M. Gardinois, at the Chateau de Savigny, in the hothouses, on the
balconies, and all about the gravelled courtyard bordered with tall urns.
Those were the flowers she loved; that was her idea of the country!

The little stations in the outskirts of Paris are so terribly crowded and