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women: Whole beds full of showy blossoms; but when the time comes to be ripe and luscious, you can't find them.”

“Indeed.”

“’Tis true, ’tis pity.”

“I had always supposed that to a Southern gentleman woman was not a berry but a rose. What does he hunt for in woman as much as bloom and fragrance? But I don't belong to the rose-order of Southern women myself. Sylvia does. Why did you send me that story?”

“Didn’t you like it?”

“No. A woman couldn’t care for a story about a man and a tigress. Either she would feel that she was too much left out, or suspect that she was too much put in. The same sort of story about a lion and a woman—that would be better.”

I raked in silence for a minute, and when I looked up Georgiana was gone. I remem-