Vases and bowls of fresh flowers in our novels often feature in Persephone novels and tell the reader a great deal about the people who arrange them. Rhoda's arrangement in The New House is strikingly colourful and natural after the stuffiness of the dark, old Victorian house. "By choosing strange colours and putting them together, combining the vivid discords in a brilliant harmony, she expressed and satisfied a deep, unsatisfied longing for charm and colour...she carried the flowers in and put them one by one in the clouded bowl, lifted them and shook them gently, setting free their airy grace with a light touch, as though she shook loose a flock of butterflies into the air." This is Flowers (c1930-37) by Ruth Latter (1869-1949) in the Museum of the Home.