gh? And doesn't it beat a jimmy when it comes to breaking into
society!"

Mary Virginia, he added in an altered voice, had been exquisite in a
frock all silver lace and shimmery stuffs like moonbeams, and with a
rope of pearls about her throat, and in her black hair. Appleboro
folks do not affect orchids, but Mary Virginia wore a huge cluster of
those exotics. She had been very gracious to the Butterfly Man and
Madame. But only for a brief bright minute had she been the Mary
Virginia they knew. All the rest of the evening she seemed to grow
statelier, colder, more dazzlingly and imperially regal. And her eyes
were like frozen sapphires under her level brows, and her mouth was
the red splendid bow of Pride.

Watching her, my mother was pained and puzzled; as for the Butterfly
Man, his heart went below zero. Those who loved Mary Virginia had
cause for painful reflections.

Blinded by her beauty, were we judging her by the light of affection,
instead of the colder light of reason? We couldn't approve of her
behavior to Laurence, nor was it easy to refrain from disapproval of
what appeared to be a tacit endurance of Inglesby's attention. She
couldn't plead ignorance of what was open enough to be town talk--the
man's shameless passion for herself, a passion he seemed to take
delight in flaunting. And she made no effort to explain; she seemed
deliberately to exclude her old friends from the confidence once so
freely given. She hadn't visited the Parish House since she had broken
her engagement.

And all the while the spring that hadn't time for the little concerns
of mortals went secretly about her immortal business of rejuvenation.
The blue that had been so timid and so tentative overspread the sky;
more robins came, and after them bluebirds and redbirds and
Peterbirds, and the impudent screaming robber jay that is so beautiful
and so bold, and flute-voiced vireos, and nuthatches, and the darling
busybody wren fussing about her house-building in the corners of our
piazzas. The first red flowers of the Japanese quince opened
flame-like on the bare brown bushes. When the bridal-wreath by the
gate saw that, she set industriously to work upon her own
wedding-gown. The yellow jessamine was full of waxy gold buds; and
long since those bold frontiersmen of the year, the Judas-trees, had
flaunted it in bravest scarlet, and the slim-legged scouts of the
pines showed shoulder-straps and cockades of new gay green above
gallant