"They don't look like flowering shrubs to me."
"They aren't. They're flowering trees; fruit trees!"
"O-o! That really is a peach blossom, then!"
"The deep pink is peach, and the delicate pink is apple and the white is plum."
"They're perfectly dear. Tell me how you coaxed them out. Surely you didn't just keep them in water in this room?"
"We put them in the sunniest window we had, not too near the glass, because it wouldn't do for them to run any chance of getting chilled. They stayed there as long as the sun did, and then we moved them to another warm spot and we were very careful about them at night."
"Every two or three days; and once in a while we spray them to keep the upper part fresh--and there you are. It's _fun_ to watch them come out. Don't want to take some switches back to town with you?"
"They make me think of a scheme that my Aunt Rose is putting into operation. She went round the world year before last," she said, "and she saw in Japan lots of plants growing in earthenware vases hanging against the wall or in a long bamboo cut so that small water bottles might be slipped in. She has some of the very prettiest wall decorations now--a queer looking greeny-brown pottery vase has two or three sprigs of English ivy. Another with orange tints has nasturtiums and another tradescantia."
"The ivy and the tradescantia are, but the nasturtiums and a perfectly darling morning glory have earth. She's growing bulbs in them, too, only she doesn't use plain water or earth, just bulb fibre."
"Why, bulbs are such fat creatures that they don't need the outside food they would get from earth; all they want is plenty of water. This fibre stuff holds enough water to keep them damp all the time, and it isn't messy in the house like dirt."
"What are you girls talking about?" asked Dorothy, who came in with Ethel Brown at this moment.
Both of them were interested in the addition that Della had made to their knowledge of flowers and gardening.
"Every day I feel myself drawn into more and more gardening," exclaimed Dorothy. "I've set up a notebook already."
"January seems to be the time to do your thinking and planning; that's what the people who know tell me."
"It seems to be the time for some action," retorted Della, waving her hand at the blossoming branches about the room.
