Bradford, standing at a little distance, under an archway, scanned the
faces of the smart married women who bustled about canvassing, and the
young girls who carelessly gathered the sumptuous roses into bouquets for
the buyers, making a great fuss over the thorns as they did so. Then one
tall, white-clad figure arrested his attention. It was Sylvia. She
handled the flowers lovingly, and was bestowing patient attention upon a
country woman, to whom these pampered roses were a revelation, and who
wished a bouquet made up of samples, one of each variety, and not a mass
all of a colour like the bunches that were arranged in the great baskets.
As Sylvia held the bouquet up for the woman's approval, adding a bud
here and there, pausing to breathe its fragrance herself before handing
it to the purchaser, Horace's courage came back. She was plainly not a
part of the vortex that surrounded her. Circumstances at present seemed
to stand between. He could not even venture a guess if she ever gave him
other than a friendly thought; but a feeling came over him as he stood in
the deep shade, that some day she might be lonely and need steadfast
friendship, and then the opportunity to serve her would give him the
right to question.
Now thoroughly master of himself, he went toward her, and was rewarded by
a greeting of unfeigned pleasure, a few moments of general talk, and a
big bunch of roses for his mother.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233