“I would like more foliage for this large bouquet. Will you please get it for me?” and she gave him the scissors.
He obeyed her with a lingering glance upon the fair face bending over the flowers, and a resolve to tell her what was in his heart, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” and it came as natural for Fred Warfield to speak of love to a pretty girl as it is for a broker to discuss the rise and fall of stocks, or an artist the lights and shades of a new study. In truth, it was his chief amusement, and practice had made him perfect.
Just now, however, he was ill at ease, and in his own eyes awkward and uncouth as, leaning against the door frame of the arbor, he watched Hilda’s active fingers add the foliage to the artistically arranged bouquet.
“You are very beautiful, cousin,” he said almost involuntarily.
“I know it,” she replied serenely, without glancing in his direction.
Fred gazed upon her in undisguised astonishment.
“This is not new to you; you have been told so by others,” he said.
“By admiring glances and appreciative smiles, never in words.”
“Do you consider it good form, Cousin Hilda, to express your opinion of your own beauty?” he inquired of her, with commendable hesitation.
“If you remember, cousin, it was not I who expressed the opinion; I only agreed with yours,” and she gave minute attention to the placing of colors in the second bouquet.