Blushing, she told me.
"And might I ask you," looking beseechingly at her as a person who might be my future wife—"might I ask you to give me one of your roses?"
"Take as many as you like," she said courteously.
"I would rather you gave me one," with a smile.
She hesitated for an instant, then quickly plucked a bud from the side of the open window, threw it to me and ran away.
"I shall find my Rose later," sighed I.
I sauntered on to church, a pretty little building of mossy gray stone, and seated myself on a shady bench under the elms to watch the people assembling.
Ye gods! could it be? Here were last summer's styles, airs and grimaces, served up as it were cold. I could pick out bad copies of each girl I had flirted with the past season. You remember Florence Rich at The Resort?—here was her portrait in caricature. Florence was the vainest girl I ever knew, and showed it too. But she was vain of herself. This country Florence was vain of a new silk that I would have taken the odds she was wearing for the first time. She looked as if she were saying with every rustle, "Admire me!" though of course she wasn't, you know. She was constantly arranging her bracelet or smoothing her glove, and looking on this side and that to see if any one was observing her. By this means she gave her admirers the benefit of her full face, showing both earrings; then of her profile, showing one earring and her curls; and then of the back of her head, showing her fall bonnet. Her little black veil ended just where her nose needed a shade. It is needless to mention that she looked at me as she passed and gave me a smile à la profile, which was ostensibly aimed at a pale young man near the church-door.
On they came, looking like the remnants of my summer's feast—the supper after my season's dinner—stale and repelling to my satiated palate. On entering I saw the ghost of "the Soprano" at the head of the choir, with less voice and more affectation. The same glances of envy that had been shot from angry eyes at The Resort I now saw passing between angry eyes here. The church was full of imitations of this kind, or were they only inferior originals of the same type?
I learned afterward that the girls of the town were divided into two classes—the followers of Miss Loude, who was fast and flashy, and the imitators of Miss Weighty, who affected the quiet style, did not visit indiscriminately, and was considered "stuck up" by the townspeople, being the daughter of a retired grocer. During the service they all looked at me. Some who were of the Loude school did it openly: those after the Weighty pattern peeped clandestinely over their prayer-books, through their fans, or between their fingers when praying. The more clever would use strategy, shivering as if in a draught of air, and looking around in my direction to see if a window were open, while the mammas eyed me steadily through spectacles.