BRIDE ROSES
W. D. HOWELLS
Bride Roses
A SCENE
By W. D. Howells
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Houghton, Mifflin and Company MDCCCC
COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY W. D. HOWELLS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Bride Roses
SCENE
A Lady, entering the florist's with her muff to her face, andfluttering gayly up to the counter, where the florist stands folding amass of loose flowers in a roll of cotton batting: "Good-morning, Mr.Eichenlaub! Ah, put plenty of cotton round the poor things, if you don'twant them frozen stiff! You have no idea what a day it is, here in yourlittle tropic." She takes away her muff as she speaks, but gives each ofher cheeks a final pressure with it, and holds it up with one handinside as she sinks upon the stool before the counter.
The Florist: "Dropic? With icepergs on the wintows?" He nods his headtoward the frosty panes, and wraps a sheet of tissue-paper around thecotton and the flowers.
The Lady: "But you are not near the windows. Back here it ismidsummer!"
The Florist: "Yes, we got a rhevricherator to keep the rhoces fromsunstroke." He crimps the paper at the top, and twists it at the bottomof the bundle in his hand. "Hier!" he calls to a young man warming hishands at the stove. "Chon, but on your hat, and dtake this to—Holt on!I forgot to but in the cart." He undoes the paper, and puts in a cardlying on the counter before him; the lady watches him vaguely. "There!"[Pg 5]He restores the wrapping and hands the package to the young man, whogoes out with it. "Well, matam?"
The Lady, laying her muff with her hand in it on the counter, andleaning forward over it: "Well, Mr. Eichenlaub. I am going to be verydifficult."
The Florist: "That is what I lige. Then I don't feel so rhesbonsible."
The Lady: "But to-day, I wish you to feel responsible. I want you totake the whole responsibility. Do you know why I always come to you,instead of those places on Fifth Avenue?"
The Florist: "Well, it is a good teal cheaper, for one thing"—
The Lady: "Not at all! That isn't the reason, at all. Some of your[Pg 6]things are dearer. It's because you take so much more interest, and youtalk over what I want, and you don't urge me, when I haven't made up mymind. You let me consult you, and you are not cross when I don't takeyour advice."
The Florist: "You are very goodt, matam."
The Lady: "Not at all. I am simply just. And now I want you to providethe flowers for my first Saturday: Saturday of this week, in fact, and Iwant to talk the order all over with you. Are you very busy?"
The Florist: "No; I am qvite at your service. We haf just had toegsegute a larche gommission very soddenly, and we are still in a littledtisorter yet; but"—
The Lady: "Yes, I see." She glances at the rear of the shop, wherethe floor is littered with the leaves and petals of flowers, and spraysof fern and evergreen. A woman, followed by a belated smell ofbreakfast, which gradually mingles with the odor of the plants, comesout of a door there, and begins to gather the larger fr