Volume Ii Part 27 (1/2)
”Handsomest! I never saw anything like it. I shall wear some of these to-night, Mamma.”
”You are in a great hurry to appropriate it,” said Constance; ”how do you know but it is mine?”
”Which of us is it for, Joe?”
”Say it is mine, Joe, and I will vote you ? the best article of your kind,” said Constance, with an inexpressible glance at Fleda.
”Who brought it, Joe?” said Mrs. Evelyn.
”Yes, Joe, who brought it? where did it come from, Joe?” Joe had hardly a chance to answer.
”I really couldn't say, Miss Florence; the man wasn't known to me.”
”But did he say it was for Florence or for me?”
”No, Ma'am ? he ?”
”_Which_ did he say it was for?”
”He didn't say it was either for Miss Florence or for you, Miss Constance; he ?”
”But didn't he say who sent it?”
”No, Ma'am. It's ?”
”Mamma, here is a white moss that is beyond everything! with two of the most lovely buds. Oh!” said Constance, clasping her hands, and whirling about the room in comic ecstasy, ”I sha'n't survive it if I cannot find out where it is from.”
”How delicious the scent of these tea-roses is!” said Fleda.
”You ought not to mind the snow-storm to-day, after this, Florence. I should think you would be perfectly happy.”
”I shall be, if I can contrive to keep them fresh to wear to- night. Mamma, how sweetly they would dress me!”
”They're a great deal too good to be wasted so,” said Mrs.
Evelyn; ”I sha'n't let you do it.”
”Mamma! it wouldn't take any of them at all for my hair, and the _bouquet de corsage_, too; there'd be thousands left. Well, Joe, what are you waiting for?”
”I didn't say,” said Joe, looking a good deal blank and a little afraid ? ”I should have said ? that the bouquet ? is ?”
”What is it?”
”It is ? I believe, Ma'am ? the man said it was for Miss Ringgan.”
”For me!” exclaimed Fleda, her cheeks forming instantly the most exquisite commentary on the gift that the giver could have desired. She took in her hand the superb bunch of flowers from which the fingers of Florence unclosed as if it had been an icicle.
”Why didn't you say so before?” she inquired sharply; but the ”fowling-piece” had wisely disappeared.
”I am very glad!” exclaimed Edith. ”They have had plenty all winter, and you haven't had one. I am very glad it is yours, Fleda.”
But such a shadow had come upon every other face that Fleda's pleasure was completely overclouded. She smelled at her roses, just ready to burst into tears, and wis.h.i.+ng sincerely that they had never come.
”I am afraid, my dear Fleda,” said Mrs. Evelyn, quietly going on with her breakfast, ”that there is a thorn somewhere among those flowers.”