The fact that the business venture was to be carried on under the eye of Mrs. Foster and her daughter, ladies whom Mrs. Morton knew well and respected and admired, was the turning point in her decision to allow the girls to conduct the affair which had entered their minds so suddenly.  She and Mrs. Smith went to the Inn and assisted in the arrangement of the first assortment of flowers and plants, saw to it that there was a space on the back porch where they could be handled without the water or vases being in the way of the workers in the Inn, suggested that an additional sign reading

  PLANTS and CUT FLOWERS

be hung below the sign outside and that a card

  FOR THE BENEFIT OF ROSE HOUSE

be placed over the table inside, and then went away and left the girls to manage affairs themselves.

It was while Ethel Blue was drawing the poster to hang over the table that the “botanist” walked into the hall and strolled over to investigate the addition to the furnishings.  He asked a question or two in a voice they did not like.  They noticed that the young girl with him called him “Uncle Dan” and that he called her “Mary.”

The girls had arranged their flowers according to Mrs. Smith’s and Mrs. Emerson’s ideas, not crowding them but showing each to its best advantage and selecting for each a vase that suited its form and coloring.  Their supplies were kept out of sight in order not to mar the effect.  The tables of the tea rooms were decorated with pink on this opening day, both because they thought that some of the guests might see some connection between pink and the purpose of the sale, helping Rose House—­and for the practical reason that they had more pink blossoms than any other color, thanks to their love of that gay hue.

It was noon before any people outside of the resident guests of the Inn stopped at the house.  Then a party of people evidently from a distance, for they were covered with dust, ordered luncheon.  While the women were arranging their hair in the dressing room the men came over to the flower table and asked countless questions.

“Here, Gerald,” one called to another, “these young women have just begun this business to-day and they haven’t had a customer yet.  I’m going to be the first; you can be the second.”

“Nothing of the sort; I’ll be the first myself,” and “Gerald” tossed half a dollar on to the table with an order for “Sweetpeas, all pink, please.”

Ethel Blue, flushed with excitement over this first sale, set about filling a box with the fresh butterfly blossoms, while Ethel Brown attended to the man who had begun the conversation.  He wanted “A bunch of bachelor’s buttons for a young lady with blue eyes.”  An older man who came to see what the younger ones were doing bought buttonholes for all the men and directed that a handful of flowers of different kinds be placed beside each plate on the large table on the shady porch where they were to have their meal.