“Then we’ll bother Grandfather all we can,” threatened Ethel Brown seriously.  “He’s given us this list in the order of their blossoming—­”

“More or less,” interposed Mr. Emerson.  “Some of them over-lap, of course.  It’s roughly accurate, though.”

“You can’t stick them in a week apart and have them blossom a week apart?” asked Della.

“Not exactly.  It takes some of them longer to germinate and make ready to bloom than it does others.  But of course it’s true in a general way that the first to be planted are the first to bloom.”

“We haven’t put in the late ones yet,” Ethel Blue reminded Mr. Emerson.

“Asters, to begin with.  I don’t see how there’ll be enough room in your small bed to make much of a show with asters.  I should put some in, of course, in May, but there’s a big opportunity at the new garden to have a splendid exhibition of them.  Some asters now are almost as large and as handsome as chrysanthemums—­astermums, they call them—­and the pink ones are especially lovely.”

“Put a big ‘D’ against ‘asters,’” advised Roger.  “That will mean that there must be a large number put into Dorothy’s new garden.”

“The aster will begin to blossom in August and will continue until light frost and the chrysanthemums will begin a trifle later and will last a little longer unless there is a killing frost.”

“Can we get blossoms on chrysanthemums the first, year?” asked Margaret, who had not found that true in her experience in her mother’s garden.

“There are some new kinds that will blossom the first year, the seedsmen promise.  I’d like to have you try some of them.”

“Mother has two or three pink ones—­well established plants—­that she’s going to let us move to the pink bed,” said Helen.

“The chrysanthemums will end your procession,” said Mr. Emerson, “but you mustn’t forget to put in some mallow.  They are easy to grow and blossom liberally toward the end of the season.”

“Can we make candy marshmallows out of it?”

“You can, but it would be like the Persian insect powder—­it would be easier to buy it.  But it has a handsome pink flower and you must surely have it on your list.”

“I remember when Mother used to have the greatest trouble getting cosmos to blossom,” said Margaret.  “The frost almost always caught it.  Now there is a kind that comes before the frost.”

“Cosmos is a delight at the end of the season,” remarked Mr. Emerson.  “Almost all the autumn plants are stocky and sturdy, but cosmos is as graceful as a summer plant and as delicate as a spring blossom.  You can wind up your floral year with asters and mallow and chrysanthemums and cosmos all blooming at once.”

“Now for the blue beds,” said Tom, excusing himself for looking at his watch on the plea that he and Della had to go back to New York by a comparatively early train.

“If you’re in a hurry I’ll just give you a few suggestions,” said Mr. Emerson.  “Really blue flowers are not numerous, I suppose you have noticed.”