What vision can have been fairer
than that presented by Flora Le Pettit upon Flora Day? "None, none,
none," thought eager Loveday, as she edged through the crowd and caught
sight of her divinity. None ... and yet that sight caused Loveday a
strange clutching in her breast.
For she, too, had felt fair when she had gazed in her tiny mirror; the
yellowed linen gown had gleamed pure and white, her young breast had
swelled above the waist that looked so slim, and that was so finely
girt.... Yet, now, something of splendour about Miss Le Pettit that
she could not attain dimmed all herself and, with herself, her joy.
Her face, already flushed by her walk, burned deeper still with shame.
Yet the desire that three weeks of striving had swollen to a passion
urged her forward, and, fingering the lovely thing about her waist to
gain courage, she broke through the last ring of staring people and
stood in front of Miss Le Pettit.
The heiress of Ignores had not yet caught sight of her, being engaged in
laughing conversation with several admiring gentlemen, but something of
an almost painful intensity in the dark gaze of the village girl drew
her face to meet it. The black eyes, so full of an extravagant passion,
met the careless glance of the blue orbs that knew not even the passing
shadow of such a thing.
"Oh," stammered Loveday, the set speech she had been conning all the way
to Bugletown dying upon her lips, "Oh, Miss Flora, I'm come. I've got my
white sash and I'm come.
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