Eveena's second request came naturally from one whose favourite
amusement had been the raising and modification of flowers. She asked
to be entrusted with the charge of the seeds I had brought from Earth,
and to be permitted to form a bed in the peristyle for the purpose of
the experiment. Though this disfigured the perfect arrangement of the
garden, I was delighted to have so important and interesting a problem
worked out by hands so skilful and so careful. I should probably have
failed to rear a single plant, even had I been familiar with those
applications of electricity to the purpose which are so extensively
employed in Mars. Eveena managed to produce specimens strangely
altered, sometimes stunted, sometimes greatly improved, from about
one-fourth of the seeds entrusted to her; and among those with which
she was most brilliantly successful were some specimens of Turkish
roses, the roses of the attar, which I had obtained at Stamboul. My
admiration of her patience and pleasure in her success deeply
gratified her; and it was a full reward for all her trouble when I
suggested that she should send to her sister Zevle a small packet of
each of the seeds with which she had succeeded.
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