It should be called "experience."
She had known bitter experiences early in life. Suffering had been
her familiar more than joy. He watched her earnestly, his heart deeply
moved. She led him into a swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped
and stepped aside. He uttered a cry of surprised delight.
A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass grew in tufts long
and fine. Blue flags waved, clusters of cowslips nodded gold heads, but
the whole earth was purple with a thick blanket of violets nodding from
stems a foot in length. Elnora knelt and slipping her fingers between
the leaves and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets and gave
them to Philip.
"Can your city greenhouses surpass them?" she asked.
He sat on a log to examine the blooms.
"They are superb!" he said. "I never saw such length of stem or such
rank leaves, while the flowers are the deepest blue, the truest violet
I ever saw growing wild. They are coloured exactly like the eyes of the
girl I am going to marry."
Elnora handed him several others to add to those he held. "She must have
wonderful eyes," she commented.
"No other blue eyes are quite so beautiful," he said. "In fact, she is
altogether lovely."
"Is it customary for a man to think the girl he is going to marry
lovely? I wonder if I should find her so."
"You would," said Philip. "No one ever fails to. She is tall as you,
very slender, but perfectly rounded; you know about her eyes; her hair
is black and wavy--while her complexion is clear and flushed with red.
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