“How are you going to make it look like a rose and not a pink bell?” inquired Delia.

“Put a green calyx on the top and some yellow stamens inside and then make a stem that will look like the real thing, only gigantic.”

“How will you manage that?”

“Do you remember those wild grape vines that Helen and Ethel Brown found in the West Woods and used for Hallowe’en decorations?  If we could get a thick one and wind it with green paper and let it curve from the rose toward the ground it ought to look like a real stem.”

“We could hang the rose with dark string that wouldn’t show, and fasten the stem to the branch of the tree with a pink bow.  It would look as if some giant had tied it there for his ladylove.”

“I have an old pink sash I’ll contribute to the good cause,” laughed Helen.  “I’ve been wondering what to do with it for some time.”

“Everything on the table must be pink and shaped like a rose or decorated with roses—­cushions, pen-wipers, baskets, stencilled bureau sets—­there are a thousand things to be made.”

“Boxes covered with rose paper,” suggested James solemnly.

Everybody shouted, for James’s imagination always seemed to be stimulated whenever he saw a chance to make something with paste-pot and brush.

“How about music?”

This question brought silence, for it was not easy to arrange for music in the open.

“I wish Edward and his violin were here,” said Delia, referring to her brother, Dr. Watkins, who had recently gone to Oklahoma to assist an older physician in a flourishing town there.  He had been very attentive to Miss Merriam and she was annoyed to find herself blushing at the mention of his name.  Ethel Blue, who had been in his confidence, was the only one of the young people who glanced at her, however, so her annoyance passed unnoticed.

“He isn’t, and a piano is out of the question.  I wonder, if Greg Patton would bring his fiddle?”

“Why didn’t we think of him before!  He and some of the other high school boys have been getting up a little orchestra; I shouldn’t wonder a bit if they’d be glad to help—­glad of the experience of playing in public.”

“We haven’t got to make oceans of paper roses, this time,” remarked Ethel Brown gratefully.  “Nature is doing the work for us.”

She waved her hand at the clump of bushes which was to conceal Dorothy’s fortune telling operations, and which was pink with blossoms.

“Our bushes at home are loaded down with them, too,” said Margaret.  “Everybody’s are, so I don’t suppose it would be worth while to have a flower table.”

“There’s no harm in trying.  We could say on the poster that exceptionally choice roses will be on exhibition and sale and—­and why couldn’t we take orders for the bushes?  Use the beauties for samples and if people like them, get roots from the bushes they came from and supply them the next day!”