The Booming of Acre Hill And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life

A GLANCE AT MISS FLORA HENDERSON HERSELF

But what sort of a woman was Miss Flora Henderson, it may be asked, that she should demand so much in the man with whom she should share the burdens of life?  Surely one should be wellnigh perfect one’s self to require so much of another—­and I really think Miss Flora Henderson was so.

In the first place, she was tall and stately—­Junoesque some people called her.  She had an eye fit for all things.  It was soft or hard, as one wished it.  It was melting or fixed, according to the mood one would have her betray.  She was never flippant, and while the small things of life interested her to an extent, much more absorbed was she in the great things which pertain to existence.  Dance she could, and well, but she danced not to the exclusion of all other things.  With dancing people she was a dancer full of the poetry of motion, and enjoying it openly and innocently.  With a man of learning, however, she was equally at home as with the callow youth.  With nature in her every mood was she in sympathy.  She was fond of poetry and of music; indeed, to sum up her character in as few words as possible, she was everything that so critical a dreamer of the ideal as Mr. Augustus Richards could have wished for, nor was there one weak spot in the armor of her character at which he could cavil.

In short, Miss Flora Henderson, of Boston, was the ideal of whom Mr. Augustus Richards, of New York, dreamed.