I noticed--and wondered how Zenobia contrived it--that she had always a new flower in her hair.And still it was a hot-house flower,--an outlandish flower,--a flower of the tropics, such as appeared to have sprung passionately out of a soil the very weeds of which would be fervid and spicy.Unlike as was the flower of each successive day to the preceding one, it yet so assimilated its richness to the rich beauty of the woman, that I thought it the only flower fit to be worn; so fit, indeed, that Nature had evidently created this floral gem, in a happy exuberance, for the one purpose of worthily adorning Zenobia's head.It might be that my feverish fantasies clustered themselves about this peculiarity, and caused it to look more gorgeous and wonderful than if beheld with temperate eyes.In the height of my illness, as I well recollect, I went so far as to pronounce it preternatural.
"Zenobia is an enchantress!" whispered I once to Hollingsworth."She is a sister of the Veiled Lady.That flower in her hair is a talisman.If you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into something else." "What does he say?" asked Zenobia.
"Nothing that has an atom of sense in it," answered Hollingsworth."He is a little beside himself, I believe, and talks about your being a witch, and of some magical property in the flower that you wear in your hair.""It is an idea worthy of a feverish poet," said she, laughing rather compassionately, and taking out the flower."I scorn to owe anything to magic.Here, Mr.Hollingsworth, you may keep the spell while it has any virtue in it; but I cannot promise you not to appear with a new one to-morrow.It is the one relic of my more brilliant, my happier days!"The most curious part of the matter was that, long after my slight delirium had passed away,--as long, indeed, as t continued to know this remarkable woman,--her daily flower affected my imagination, though more slightly, yet in very much the same way.The reason must have been that, whether intentionally on her part or not, this favorite ornament was actually a subtile expression of Zenobia's character.
One subject, about which--very impertinently, moreover--I perplexed myself with a great many conjectures, was, whether Zenobia had ever been married.The idea, it must be understood, was unauthorized by any circumstance or suggestion that had made its way to my ears.So young as I beheld her, and the freshest and rosiest woman of a thousand, there was certainly no need of imputing to her a destiny already accomplished; the probability was far greater that her coming years had all life's richest gifts to bring.If the great event of a woman's existence had been consummated, the world knew nothing of it, although the world seemed to know Zenobia well.It was a ridiculous piece of romance, undoubtedly, to imagine that this beautiful personage, wealthy as she was, and holding a position that might fairly enough be called distinguished, could have given herself away so privately, but that some whisper and suspicion, and by degrees a full understanding of the fact, would eventually be blown abroad.But then, as I failed not to consider, her original home was at a distance of many hundred miles.Rumors might fill the social atmosphere, or might once have filled it, there, which would travel but slowly, against the wind, towards our Northeastern metropolis, and perhaps melt into thin air before reaching it.
