It was, next, correct that he should allude to the weather; and his reference was one of the two or three that it seems a stranger’s destiny always to hear in a place new to him: he apologized for the weather--so cold a season had not, in his memory, been experienced in Kings Port; it was to the highest point exceptional. I exclaimed that it had been, to my Northern notions, delightfully mild for March. “Indeed,” I continued, “I have always said that if March could be cut out of our Northern climate, as the core is cut out of an apple, I should be quite satisfied with eleven months, instead of twelve. I think it might prolong one’s youth.” The fire of that season lighted in his eyes, but he still stepped upon polished convention. He assured me that the Southern September hurricane was more deplorable than any Northern March could be. “Our zone should be called the Intemperate zone,” said he. “But never in Kings Port,” I protested; “with your roses out-of-doors--and your ladies indoors!” He bowed. “You pay us a high compliment.” I smiled urbanely. “If the truth is a compliment!” “Our young ladies are roses,” he now admitted with a delicate touch of pride. “Don’t forget your old ones! I never shall.” There was pleasure in his face at this tribute, which, he could see, came from the heart. But, thus pictured to him, the old ladies brought a further idea quite plainly into his expression; and he announced it. “Some of them are not without thorns.” “What would you give,” I quickly replied, “for anybody--man or woman--who could not, on an occasion, make themselves sharply felt?” To this he returned a full but somewhat absent-minded assent. He seemed to be reflecting that he himself didn’t care to be the “occasion” upon which an old lady rose should try her thorns; and I was inclined to suspect that his intimate aunt had been giving him a wigging. Anyhow, I stood ready to keep it up, this interchange of lofty civilities. I, too, could wear the courtly red-heels of eighteenth-century procedure, and for just as long as his Southern up-bringing inclined him to wear them; I hadn’t known Aunt Carola for nothing! But we, as I have said, were not destined to dance any minuet.