"Oh, look! isn't it lovely?"
The ladies, who had gone on a few steps, found themselves before the flowers and feathers department, installed in the central gallery, between the silk and glove departments. It appeared beneath the bright light of the glass roof as an enormous florescence, a white sheaf, tall and broad as an oak. The base was formed of single flowers, violets, lilies of the valley, hyacinths, daisies, all the delicate hues of the garden. Then came bouquets, white roses, softened by a fleshy tint, great white peonies, slightly shaded with carmine, white chrysanthemums, with narrow petals and starred with yellow.
And the flowers still ascended, great mystical lilies, branches of apple blossom, bunches of lilac, a continual blossoming, surmounted, as high as the first storey,
