s a frhiendt of yours"--

_The Lady_, shrinking back: "Ah, it isn't so simple! That makes it all
the worse. It would be a kind of sacrilege! I have no right--or, wait! I
will just glance at the first word. It may be a clew. And I want you to
bear me witness, Mr. Eichenlaub, that I didn't read a word more." She
catches up a piece of paper, and covers all the card except the first
two words. "Yes! It is she! Oh, how perfectly delightful! It's charming,
charming! It's one of the prettiest things that ever happened! And I
shall be the means--no, not the means, quite, but the accident--of
bringing them together! Put the card into the box, Mr. Eichenlaub, and
don't let me see it an instant longer, or I shall read every word of it,
in spite of myself!" She gives him the card, and turns, swiftly, and
makes some paces toward the door.

_The Florist_, calling after her: "But the attress, matam. You forgot."

_The Lady_, returning: "Oh, yes! Give me your pencil." She writes on a
piece of the white wrapping-paper. "There! That is it." She stands
irresolute, with the pencil at her lip. "There was something else that I
seem to have forgotten."

_The Florist:_ "Your flowers?"

_The Lady:_ "Oh, yes, my flowers. I nearly went away without deciding.
Let me see. Where are those white roses with the pink tinge on the edge
of the petals?" The florist pushes the box towards her, and she looks
down at the roses. "No, they won't do. They look somehow--cruel! I
don't wonder he wouldn't have them. They are totally out of character. I
will take those white Bride roses, too. It seems a fatality, but there
really isn't anything else, and I can laugh with her about them, if it
all turns out well." She talks to herself rather than the florist, who
stands patient behind the counter, and repeats, dreamily, "Laugh with
her!"

_The Florist:_ "How many shall I sendt you, matam?"

_The Lady:_ "Oh, loads. As many as you think I ought to have. I shall
not have any other flowers, and I mean to toss them on the table in
loose heaps. Perhaps I shall have some smilax to go with them."

_The Florist:_ "Yes; or cypress wine."

_The Lady:_ "No; that is too crapy and creepy. Smilax, or nothing; and
yet I don't like that hard, shiny, varnishy look of smilax either. You
wouldn't possibly have anything like that wild vine, it's scarcely more
than a golden thread, that trails over the wayside bushes in New
England? Dodder, they call it."

_The Florist:_ "I n