"How is it I have never heard you sing before?" he inquired, with the applause that the others had uttered shining unspoken in his eyes.
"You have too many professional singers about your home. I am afraid to sing before them. Did you ever hear birds called 'the angels of earth?'"
"Never."
"Well, if nobody else originated the phrase I am willing to do so—rather than that it shouldn't be originated at all."
"It may be a pretty idea," said Allan, "and yet it fails to suit my critical taste." They withdrew a little from the crowd, and found a quiet place in which to sit and chat, for now a pianist of note had been led a willing sacrifice to the place Rose vacated.
"You must be hard to please," said Rose. "What can be more like an angel than a bird? It has wings, and it sings, and it is rejoicingly happy. It seems to be particularly blest every moment of its blessed little life."
"Very likely. Nevertheless I think a flower much more closely resembles an angel."
"A flower? Why, there is scarcely a point of resemblance."
The young man laughed, but the slight whimsical frown between his brows deepened.
"Now that isn't at all what I expected you to say. I thought you might be kind enough to inquire, 'What flower?' and then I could reply, 'The queen of flowers.'"