The two had been a-maying together.  They had found anemones in abundance, houstonias by the handful, some columbines, a few long-stalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting flowers, and had filled up their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and trees.  None were prettier than the maple twigs, the leaf of which looks like a scarlet bud in May, and like a plate of vegetable gold in October.  Zenobia, who showed no conscience in such matters, had also rifled a cherry-tree of one of its blossomed boughs, and, with all this variety of sylvan ornament, had been decking out Priscilla.  Being done with a good deal of taste, it made her look more charming than I should have thought possible, with my recollection of the wan, frost-nipt girl, as heretofore described.  Nevertheless, among those fragrant blossoms, and conspicuously, too, had been stuck a weed of evil odor and ugly aspect, which, as soon as I detected it, destroyed the effect of all the rest.  There was a gleam of latent mischief—­not to call it deviltry—­in Zenobia’s eye, which seemed to indicate a slightly malicious purpose in the arrangement.

As for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaflets, and wore nothing but her invariable flower of the tropics.

“What do you think of Priscilla now, Mr. Coverdale?” asked she, surveying her as a child does its doll.  “Is not she worth a verse or two?”

“There is only one thing amiss,” answered I. Zenobia laughed, and flung the malignant weed away.

“Yes; she deserves some verses now,” said I, “and from a better poet than myself.  She is the very picture of the New England spring; subdued in tint and rather cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and bringing us a few Alpine blossoms, as earnest of something richer, though hardly more beautiful, hereafter.  The best type of her is one of those anemones.”

“What I find most singular in Priscilla, as her health improves,” observed Zenobia, “is her wildness.  Such a quiet little body as she seemed, one would not have expected that.  Why, as we strolled the woods together, I could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees, like a squirrel.  She has never before known what it is to live in the free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she were sipping wine.  And she thinks it such a paradise here, and all of us, particularly Mr. Hollingsworth and myself, such angels!  It is quite ridiculous, and provokes one’s malice almost, to see a creature so happy, especially a feminine creature.”

“They are always happier than male creatures,” said I.

“You must correct that opinion, Mr. Coverdale,” replied Zenobia contemptuously, “or I shall think you lack the poetic insight.  Did you ever see a happy woman in your life?  Of course, I do not mean a girl, like Priscilla and a thousand others,—­for they are all alike, while on the sunny side of experience,—­but a grown woman.  How can she be happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one single event, which she must contrive to make the substance of her whole life?  A man has his choice of innumerable events.”