So, after holding open the heavy doors for us, he strode off down town,
the bright smile still lingering about his eyes, while we retraced our
steps to the shop we had visited early that morning, and then down
again to a jeweller's. The result was a dress pattern of soft black
silk, brocaded with a small leafy design, a graceful lace-edged, muslin
fichu, and an onyx bar pin upon which three butterflies were outlined
by tiny pearls.
"Isn't he a dear fellow?" asked Miss Lavinia, apparently of a big gray
truck horse that blocked the way as we waited at the last crossing before
reaching home. And I replied, "He certainly is," with rash but
unshakable feminine conviction.
VII
SYLVIA LATHAM
Sylvia came that afternoon well before dark, a trim footman following
from the brougham with her suitcase and an enormous box of forced early
spring flowers, hyacinths, narcissi, tulips, English primroses,
lilies-of-the-valley, white lilacs, and some yellow wands of Forsythia,
"with Mrs. Latham's compliments to Miss Dorman."
"What luxury!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, turning out the flowers upon the
table in the tea room where she kept her window garden, "and how pale and
spindling my poor posies look in comparison. Are these from the Bluffs?"
"Oh no, from Newport," replied Sylvia. "There is to be no glass at the
Bluffs, only an outdoor garden, mamma says, that will not be too much
trouble to keep up.
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