It was white, and it had been promised to the fair haired girl to wear at the party.
When I arrived at the party and went to take off my coat, I found the girl there already. She was dressed in pure white, with her great white arms and shoulders showing, and her bright hair glittering in the candlelight. The white rose was pinned on her chest. She looked like a queen. I said "Good-evening," and turned away quickly to the mirror to arrange my old black scarf across my old black dress.
Then I felt a hand touch my hair.
"Stand still," she said.
I looked in the glass. She had taken the white rose from her dress and was fastening it in my hair.
"Dark hair is so nice," she said. "It makes the flowers look so pretty." She stepped back and looked at me. "It looks much better there!"
I turned around.
"You are so beautiful to me," I said.
"Y-e-s," she said, with her slow @Colonial drawl; "I'm so glad."
We stood looking at each other.
Then the men came in and swept us away to dance. All the evening we did not come near to each other. Only once, as she passed, she smiled at me.
The next morning I left the town.
I never saw her again.
Years afterwards I heard she had married and gone to @America. It may or may not be so -- but the rose -- the rose is still in my box! When my faith in people grows dim, and it seems that for want of love and generosity all will fail, then the scent of that small withered thing comes back -- spring will come, and it will not fail us. It will bring us love, and hope.
