Produced by David Edwards, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) BRIDE ROSES W. D. HOWELLS _Bride Roses_ A SCENE _By W. D. Howells_ BOSTON AND NEW YORK _Houghton, Mifflin and Company_ MDCCCC COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY HARPER & BROTHERS COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY W. D. HOWELLS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Bride Roses_ SCENE _A Lady_, entering the florist's with her muff to her face, and fluttering gayly up to the counter, where the florist stands folding a mass of loose flowers in a roll of cotton batting: "Good-morning, Mr. Eichenlaub! Ah, put plenty of cotton round the poor things, if you don't want them frozen stiff! You have no idea what a day it is, here in your little tropic." She takes away her muff as she speaks, but gives each of her cheeks a final pressure with it, and holds it up with one hand inside as she sinks upon the stool before the counter. _The Florist:_ "Dropic? With icepergs on the wintows?" He nods his head toward the frosty panes, and wraps a sheet of tissue-paper around the cotton and the flowers. _The Lady:_ "But you are not near the windows. Back here it is midsummer!" _The Florist:_ "Yes, we got a rhevricherator to keep the rhoces from sunstroke." He crimps the paper at the top, and twists it at the bottom of the bundle in his hand. "Hier!" he calls to a young man warming his hands at the stove. "Chon, but on your hat, and dtake this to--Holt on! I forgot to but in the cart." He undoes the paper, and puts in a card lying on the counter before him; the lady watches him vaguely. "There!" He restores the wrapping and hands the package to the young man, who goes out with it. "Well, matam?" _The Lady_, laying her muff with her hand in it on the counter, and leaning forward over it: "Well, Mr. Eichenlaub. I am going to be very difficult." _The Florist:_ "That is what I lige. Then I don't feel so rhesbonsible." _The Lady:_ "But to-day, I _wish_ you to feel responsible. I want you to take the whole responsibility. Do you know why I always come to you, instead of those places on Fifth Avenue?" _The Florist:_ "Well, it is a good teal cheaper, for one thing"-- _The Lady:_ "Not at all! That isn't the reason, at all. Some of your things are dearer. It's because you take so much more interest, and you talk over what I want, and you don't urge me, when I haven't made up my mind. You let me consult you, and you are not cross when I don't take your advice." _The Florist:_ "You are very goodt, matam." _The Lady:_ "Not at all. I am simply just. And now I want you to provide the flowers for my first Saturday: Saturday of this week, in fact, and I want to talk the order all over with you. Are you very busy?" _The Florist:_ "No; I am qvite at your service. We haf just had to egsegute a larche gommission very soddenly, and we are still in a little dtisorter yet; but"--