"Sure, madam," he replied, this time with easy conscience. "They were picked in the conservatory this morning."
But as he folded the paper carefully about her generous purchase, he didn't trouble her with the details of the subsequent aniline bath to which they were subjected, and of which they bore plain evidence upon close scrutiny.
But if we are to resort to hocus-pocus in the tinting of flowers, there is an artificial method available which leaves this clumsy artifice of the blue-green pinks far behind, and which, withal, affords a very pretty experiment in chemistry, albeit presumably more enjoyed by the operator than the victim.
A gentleman of the writer's acquaintance, while visiting his sister at her country home, noted her fondness for pansies, as indicated by the numerous beds and borders of the flowers there. After expressing his appreciation and surprise at the endless shades of color in the bouquet which she was gathering for the library table, he stooped, and apparently plucked one of the blossoms from a bed.
"Your pansies are certainly the most remarkable that I have ever seen. Here is one which is truly most astonishing in color," he remarked, as he handed the blossom to her.
It was received with an exclamation of amazement, and with eager glances at the neighborhood of the bed from which she presumed it had been taken. "Where did you find it?" exclaimed his sister, in complete demoralization. "Which plant was it on? Why, I never saw such a pansy! It's wonderful! There must be more. I never heard of such a pansy! Do show me where you picked it."
"I got it from this plant here, I think," replied the young man, as soon as he could be heard; and, stooping carelessly, he plucked another, which proved even more of a surprise than the first, so vividly intense was its color.
The first specimen was a dark pansy. The two usually deep purple upper petals now appeared of a deep velvety peacock blue. The remaining three petals were pale emerald-green, bordered with deeper green. In the second blossom the upper pair of petals were now transfigured in vivid emerald-green, the rest of the flower being of paler but almost equally dazzling brilliancy.
The demoralization was more and more complete as another and another of the remarkable blossoms was rescued from its obscurity, always by the accommodating young man, and added to the growing bouquet. Neighbors on right and left were quickly acquainted with the remarkable discovery, and a gathering of excited natives soon assembled in the parlor to view the new floral sensation. The pansy-beds were soon the scene of busy commotion, but in the eager search for the rare blooms fortune seemed still to favor the young man, to the exasperation of several of the bright-eyed young ladies, who, of course, did not happen to know of the young man's occasional sly recourse to a certain tumbler concealed near by.
But the secret soon leaked out, and the victim confessed and did penance. Had he realized what a commotion his innocent prank was destined to create, he would not have yielded to temptation. But his sister was primarily to blame. Why had she placed that bottle so conspicuously upon his wash-stand? He had noted her fondness for pansies, and a minute later had read "Ammonia" on the label of the bottle, and association of ideas and mischief did the rest. In a casual stroll about the pansy-beds he had then gathered a dozen or so of the several varieties and taken them to his room. Laying a piece of crumpled paper in a saucer, he then poured about a teaspoonful of the ammonia upon it, afterwards gently laying the pansies in a pile upon the paper, and thus free from actual contact with the liquid, and covering the whole with a tumbler. In two or three minutes the fumes of the ammoniacal gas had done their work, and lo! when he removed the tumbler his pansies had doffed their blues and purples, and were transfigured in velvets of all imaginable emerald and peacock and mineral greens, though still retaining their perfect shape and petal texture.