From this description, vague as
it was, I identified Ada Greene as the person intended to be described;
for I too had observed the imperfection he made a point of--a broken
tooth, impairing the beauty of otherwise faultless ones.
"And who gave you the flowers, Ernie?" I asked, receiving them from his
generous hands as I spoke, and raising the white roses to my nostrils to
inhale their delicate breath. "Did Ady give you these?"
"No--Angy!" he answered, solemnly.
"Tell me about Angy, Ernie--had she wings?"
"No wings! Poor Angy could not fly. She was walking in the garden with
Adam and Eve, with their clothes on," he said, earnestly.
"Mr. and Mrs. Claude Bainrothe, no doubt," I thought, smiling at the
strange mixture of the real and the ideal--the plates of the old Bible
evidently supplied the latter, from which many of his impressions were
derived--and the practical pair in question the former, quietly
perambulating together.
But "Angy!" Could I doubt for one moment to whom he applied that
celestial title? The face of one of the angels in the transfiguration
did, indeed, resemble Mabel's. I had often remarked and pondered over
it.
"Tell me about Angy, Ernie," I entreated. "O Heaven! to think her hands
have touched these flowers--her sweet face bent above him! Darling,
darling! to be divided and yet so near! It breaks my heart!" and tears
flowed freely while he tried to describe the vision that had so
impressed him, in his earnest way.
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