“Upon my word, Etta, I couldn’t tell you.” He laughed at his inability.
“By that token they were not beauties,” said the wife.
“It seems likely you are right. At the same time”–he was still mentally regarding his visitors–“one would never think of wishing them other than they are.”
“Describe them if you can. What age women?”
“My dear, there again you have me. Let us say that they are in the flower of life. One of them, so much I did remark, was rather more blooming than the other. Perhaps she was younger.”
“The miss?”
“The married one. But perhaps it was only the difference between a rose and–” he searched–“let us say a bunch of mignonette. The rose–here I believe I tread safely on the road of description–had of that flower the roundness and solidity, if nothing else.”
“We will call it well developed, nobly planned. But what would be the good of telling you the color of these ladies’ hair and eyes had I noticed it? It will help you much more effectively to pick them out in a crowd to be told they are very American.”
“Voices, too, I suppose.”