Bride Roses.

by W. D. Howells.

SCENE

_A Lady_, entering the florist's with her m.u.f.f to her face, and fluttering gayly up to the counter, where the florist stands folding a ma.s.s 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't want them frozen stiff! You have no idea what a day it is, here in your little tropic." She takes away her m.u.f.f as she speaks, but gives each of her cheeks a final pressure with it, and holds it up with one hand inside as she sinks upon the stool before the counter.

_The Florist:_ "Dropic? With icepergs on the wintows?" He nods his head toward the frosty panes, and wraps a sheet of tissue-paper around the cotton and the flowers.

_The Lady:_ "But you are not near the windows. Back here it is midsummer!"

_The Florist:_ "Yes, we got a rhevricherator to keep the rhoces from sunstroke." He crimps the paper at the top, and twists it at the bottom of the bundle in his hand. "Hier!" he calls to a young man warming his hands 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 card lying on the counter before him; the lady watches him vaguely. "There!"

He restores the wrapping and hands the package to the young man, who goes out with it. "Well, matam?"

_The Lady_, laying her m.u.f.f with her hand in it on the counter, and leaning forward over it: "Well, Mr. Eichenlaub. I am going to be very difficult."

_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 to take 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 things are dearer. It's because you take so much more interest, and you talk over what I want, and you don't urge me, when I haven't made up my mind. You let me consult you, and you are not cross when I don't take your advice."

_The Florist:_ "You are very goodt, matam."

_The Lady:_ "Not at all. I am simply just. And now I want you to provide the flowers for my first Sat.u.r.day: Sat.u.r.day of this week, in fact, and I want 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 to egsegute a larche gommission very soddenly, and we are still in a little dtisorter yet; but"--

_The Lady:_ "Yes, I see." She glances at the rear of the shop, where the floor is littered with the leaves and petals of flowers, and sprays of fern and evergreen. A woman, followed by a belated smell of breakfast, which gradually mingles with the odor of the plants, comes out of a door there, and begins to gather the larger fragments into her ap.r.o.n. The lady turns again, and looks at the jars and vases of cut flowers in the window, and on the counter. "What I can't understand is how you know just the quant.i.ty of flowers to buy every day. You must often lose a good deal."

_The Florist:_ "It gomes out about rhighdt, nearly always. When I get left, sometimes, I can chenerally work dem off on funerals. Now, that bic orter hat I just fill, that wa.s.s a funeral. It usedt up all the flowers I hat ofer from yesterday."

_The Lady:_ "Don't speak of it! And the flowers, are they just the same for funerals?"

_The Florist:_ "Yes, rhoces nearly always. Whidte ones."

_The Lady:_ "Well, it is too dreadful. I am not going to have roses, whatever I have." After a thoughtful pause, and a more careful look around the shop: "Mr. Eichenlaub, why wouldn't orchids do?"

_The Florist:_ "Well, they would be bretty dtear. You couldn't make any show at all for less than fifteen tollars."

_The Lady_, with a slight sigh: "No, orchids wouldn't do. They are fantastic things, anyway, and they are not very effective, as you say.

Pinks, anemones, marguerites, narcissus--there doesn't seem to be any great variety, does there?"

_The Florist_, patiently: "There will be more, lader on."

_The Lady:_ "Yes, there will be more sun, later on. But now, Mr.

Eichenlaub, what do you think of plants in pots, set around?"

_The Florist:_ "Balmss?"

_The Lady_, vaguely: "Yes, palms."

_The Florist:_ "Balmss would to. But there would not be very much golor."

_The Lady:_ "That is true; there would be no color at all, and my rooms certainly need all the color I can get into them. Yes, I shall have to have roses, after all. But not white ones!"

_The Florist:_ "Chacks?"

_The Lady:_ "No; Jacks are too old-fashioned. But haven't you got any other very dark rose? I should like something almost black, I believe."

_The Florist,_ setting a vase of roses on the counter before her: "There is the Matame Hoste."

_The Lady,_ bending over the roses, and touching one of them with the tip of her gloved finger: "Why, they _are_ black, almost! They are nearly as black as black pansies. They are really wonderful!" She stoops over and inhales their fragrance. "Delicious! They are beautiful, but"--abruptly--"they are hideous. Their color makes me creep. It is so unnatural for a rose. A rose--a rose ought to be--rose-colored! Have you no rose-colored roses? What are those light pink ones there in the window?"

_The Florist_, going to the window and getting two vases of cut roses, with long stems, both pink, but one kind a little larger than the other: "That is the Matame Watterville, and this is the Matame Cousine. They are sister rhoces; both the same, but the Matame Watterville is a little bigger, and it is a little dtearer."

_The Lady:_ "They are both exquisite, and they are such a tender almond-bloom pink! I think the Madame Cousine is quite as nice; but of course the larger ones are more effective." She examines them, turning her head from side to side, and then withdrawing a step, with a decisive sigh. "No; they are too pale. Have you nothing of a brighter pink? What is that over there?" She points to a vase of roses quite at the front of the window, and the florist climbs over the ma.s.s of plants and gets it for her.

_The Florist:_ "That is the Midio."

_The Lady:_ "The what?"

_The Florist:_ "The Midio."

_The Lady:_ "You will think I am very stupid this morning. Won't you please write it down for me?" The florist writes on a sheet of wrapping-paper, and she leans over and reads: "Oh! _Meteor!_ Well, it is very striking--a little _too_ striking. I don't like such a vivid pink, and I don't like the name. Horrid to give such a name to a flower." She puts both hands into her m.u.f.f, and drifts a little way off, as if to get him in a better perspective. "Can't you suggest something, Mr.

Eichenlaub?"

_The Florist:_ "Some kind off yellow rhoce? Dtea-rhoces?"

_The Lady,_ shaking her head: "Tea-roses are ghastly. I hate yellow roses. I would rather have black, and black is simply impossible. I shall have to tell you just what I want to do. I don't want to work up to my rooms with the flowers; I want to work up to the young lady who is going to pour tea for me. I don't care if there isn't a flower anywhere but on the table before her. I want a color scheme that shall not have a false note in it, from her face to the tiniest bud. I want them to all _come together_. Do you understand?"

_The Florist_, doubtfully: "Yes." After a moment: "What kindt looking yo'ng laty iss she?"

_The Lady:_ "The most ethereal creature in the world."

_The Florist:_ "Yes; but what sdyle--fair or tark?"

_The Lady:_ "Oh, fair! Very, very fair, and very, very fragile-looking; a sort of moonlight blonde, with those remote, starry-looking eyes, don't you know, and that pale saffron hair; not the least ashen; and just the faintest, faintest tinge of color in her face. I suppose you have nothing like the old-fashioned blush-rose? That would be the very thing."

_The Florist_, shaking his head: "Oh, no; there noding like that in a chreen-house rhoce."

_The Lady:_ "Well, that is exactly what I want. It ought to be something very tall and ethereal; something very, very pale, and yet with a sort of suffusion of color." She walks up and down the shop, looking at all the plants and flowers.

_The Florist_, waiting patiently: "Somet'ing beside rhoces, then?"