Behind Roger came several of the spring blossoms—­the Ethels first, representing the yellow crocus and the violet.  Ethel Brown wore a white dress covered with yellow gauze sewn with yellow crocuses.  A ring of crocuses hung from its edge and a crocus turned upside down made a fascinating cap.  All the flowers were made of tissue paper.  Ethel Blue’s dress was fashioned in the same way, her violet gauze being covered with violets and her cap a tiny lace affair with a violet border.  In her case she was able to use many real violets and to carry a basket of the fresh flowers.  The contents was made up of small bunches of buttonhole size and she stepped from the procession at almost every table to sell a bunch to some gentleman sitting there.  A scout kept the basket always full.

Sturdy James made a fine appearance in the spring division in the costume of a red and yellow tulip.  He wore long green stockings and a striped tulip on each leg constituted his breeches.  Another, with the points of the petals turning upwards, made his jacket, and yet another, a small one, upside down, served as a cap.  James had been rather averse to appearing in this costume because Margaret had told him he looked bulbous and he had taken it seriously, but he was so applauded that he came to the conclusion that it was worth while to be a bulb if you could be a good one.

Helen led the group of summer flowers.  As “Summer” she wore bunches of all the flowers in the garden, arranged harmoniously as in one of the old-fashioned bouquets her grandmother had spoken of in the morning.  It had been a problem to keep all these blossoms fresh for it would not be possible for her to wear artificial flowers.  The Ethels had found a solution, however, when they brought home one day from the drug store several dozen tiny glass bottles.  Around the neck of each they fastened a bit of wire and bent it into a hook which fitted into an eye sewed on to the old but pretty white frock which Helen was sacrificing to the good cause.  After she had put on the dress each one of these bottles was fitted with its flowers which had been picked some time before and revived in warm water and salt so that they would not wilt.

“These bottles make me think of a story our French teacher told us once,” Helen laughed as she stood carefully to be made into a bouquet.  “There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac who lived in the 17th century.  He told a tale supposed to be about his own adventures in which he said that once he fastened about himself a number of phials filled with dew.  The heat of the sun attracted them as it does the clouds and raised him high in the air.  When he found that he was not going to alight on the moon as he had thought, he broke some of the phials and descended to earth again.”

“What a ridiculous story,” laughed Ethel Blue, kneeling at Helen’s feet with a heap of flowers beside her on the floor.