Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1875 — Feminine Duplicity in Burlington. [ARTICLE]

Feminine Duplicity in Burlington.

It was a South Hill girl. No other human divinity could play such a heartless trick on an admiring, nay, an adoring and adorable, young man. *He always praised the flowers she wore, and talked so learnedly about flowers in general that this incredulous young angel put up a job upon him, if one may be so sacrile- , gious as to write slang in connection with so much/ beauty and grace. She filled the bay-window with freshly-potted weeds which she had laboriously gathered from the sidewalk and in the hollow under the bridge, and when he came around that evening she led the conversation to flowers andjujr admirer to the bay-windotC. “ Such lovely plants she had,” she told him, and he just clasped his hands and looked around him in silly ecstacy, trying to think of their names.

“ This Patagonia influensis,, Mr. Bogardus,’’ she said, pointing to a miserable cheat of a young rag weed—“ did you ever see anything more delicate?” , “ Oh,” he ejaculated, regarding it rgvererentially, “fteat/tilul, 6«<iutifuT; what del icHtely-serrated leaveg.” “And," she went on, withaface ascalm and angelic as though she was only saying “ Now I lay me down to sleep," “It breaks out in the summer in such curious green blossoms clinging to long, slender stems. Only think of that—green blossoms." And she gazed pensively upon the young man as though she saw something green that probably never would blossom. . ” “Wonderful, wonderful indeed,” he said; “one can never tire of botany. It continually opens to us new worlds of wonders with every awakening flower and unfolding leaf.” “ And here,” she 6aid, indicating with her snowy fingers a villainous sprout of that little bur the boys call “beggar’s lice,” “ this mendicantis parasibihs, see wliat " . “ Oh,” he exclaimed, rapturously, “where did you get it? Why, do you know liow rare it is ? I have not seen one in Burlington since Mrs. O’Glieminie went to Chicago. She had such beautiful species of them, quite a charming variety. She used to wear them in her hair so often.” “No doubt,” the angel said, dryly, and the young man feared Tie bad done wrong in praising Mrs. O’Gheminie’s plants so highly. But the dear one went on and, pointing to a young jimson weed, said: “ This is my pet, this Jimeonata Filiosenis.” The young man gasped with the pleasure of *a true lover of flowers as he bent over it, in admiration, and inhaled its nauseous odor. Then he rose up and said: “ This plant has some medicinal properties.” “Ah?” she said. “ Yes,” he replied, stiffly, “it has. I have smelled that plant in my boyhood's days. Wilted on the kitchen-stove, then bruised and applied to the eruption, the leaves are excellent remedial agents for the poison of the wild 117." He strode through the smiling company that was gathered in the parlor and said, sternly: “ We meet no more,” and, seizing her father’s hat from the rack, he extinguished himself in it and went banging along the line of tree-boxes which lined his darkened way.— Burlington Hawk-Eye.