Bride Roses

by William Dean Howells

The Florist: "No, no; they are whidte, or they are yellow; dtea-rhoces; Marshal Niel"—

The Young Man: "Ah, I don't want anything of that kind. What is the palest pink rose you have?"

The Florist, indicating the different kinds in the vases, where the lady has been looking at them: "Well, there is nothing lighder than the Matame Cousine, or the Matame Watterville, here; they are sister rhoces"—

The Young Man: "Yes, yes; very beautiful; but too dark." He stops before the Madame Hoste: "What a strange flower! It is almost black! What is it for? Funerals?"

The Florist: "No; a good many people lige them. We don't sell them much for funerals; they are too cloomy. They uce whidte ones for that: Marshal Niel, dtea-rhoces, this Pridte here, and other whidte ones."

The Young Man, with an accent of repulsion: "Oh!" He goes toward the window, and looks at a mass of Easter lilies in a vase there. He speaks as if thinking aloud: "If they had a little color—But they would be dreadful with color! Why, you ought to have something!" He continues musingly, as he returns to the florist: "Haven't you got something very delicate, and slender, about the color of pale apple blossoms? If you had them light enough, some kind of azaleas"—

The Lady, involuntarily: "Ah!"

The Florist, after a moment, in which he and the young man both glance at the lady, and she makes a sound in her throat to show that she is not thinking of them, and had not spoken in reference to what they were saying: "The only azaleas I haf are these pink ones, and those whidte ones."

The Young Man: "And they are too pink and too white. Isn't there anything tall, and very delicate? Something, well—something like the old-fashioned blush-rose? But with very long stems!"

The Florist: "No, there is noding lige that which gomes in a crheenhouse rhoce. We got a whidte rhoce here"—he goes to his refrigerator, and brings back a long box of roses—"that I didn't think of before." He gives the lady an apologetic glance. "You see there is chost the least sdain of rhet on the etch of the leafs."