The Second Lady: "Yes, it is too much! But perhaps you have come—I ought to have thought of it; you may have come on the same kind of sad errand yourself; you will know how to excuse"—
The First Lady, with a certain resentment: "Not at all! I was just ordering some flowers for a reception."
The Second Lady: "Oh! Then I beg your pardon! But there seems nothing else in the world but—death. I am very sorry. I beg your pardon!" She hastens out of the shop, and the first lady remains, looking a moment at the door after she has vanished. Then she goes slowly to the counter.
The Lady, severely: "Mr. Eichenlaub, I have changed my mind about the roses and the smilax. I will not have either. I want you to send me all of that jasmine vine that you can get. I will have my whole decorations of that. I wonder I didn't think of that before. Mr. Eichenlaub!" She hesitates. "Who was that lady?"
The Florist, looking about among the loose papers before him: "Why, I dton't know. I cot her cart here, somewhere."
The Lady, very nervously: "Never mind about the card! I don't wish to know who she was. I have no right to ask. No! I won't look at it." She refuses the card, which he has found, and which he offers to her. "I don't care for her name, but—Where was she sending the flowers?"
The Florist, tossing about the sheets of paper on the counter: "She dtidn't say, but she wrhote it down here, somewhere"—
The Lady, shrinking back: "No, no! I don't want to see it! But what right had she to ask me such a thing as that? It was very bad taste; very obtuse,—whoever she was. Have you—ah—found it?"
The Florist, offering her a paper across the counter: "Yes; here it iss."
The Lady, catching it from him, and then, after a glance at it, starting back with a shriek: "Ah-h-h! How terrible! But it can't be! Oh, I don't know what to think—It is the most dreadful thing that ever—It's impossible!" She glances at the paper again, and breaks into a hysterical laugh: "Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha! Why, this is the address that I wrote out for that young gentleman's flowers! You have made a terrible mistake, Mr. Eichenlaub—you have almost killed me. I thought—I thought that woman was sending her funeral flowers to—to"—She holds her hand over her heart, and sinks into the chair beside the counter, where she lets fall the paper. "You have almost killed me."