The pretext served also to make him the subject of many conversations.
Twice a week a bunch of the best flowers that could be got were sorted
and arranged by her, and sent namelessly to brighten Evan's chamber.

'I may do such a thing as this, you know, without incurring blame,' she
said.

The sight of a love so humble in its strength and affluence, sent
Caroline to Evan on a fruitless errand. What availed it, that accused of
giving lead to his pride in refusing the heiress, Evan should declare
that he did not love her? He did not, Caroline admitted as possible, but
he might. He might learn to love her, and therefore he was wrong in
wounding her heart. She related flattering anecdotes. She drew tearful
pictures of Juliana's love for him: and noticing how he seemed to prize
his bouquet of flowers, said:

'Do you love them for themselves, or the hand that sent them?'

Evan blushed, for it had been a struggle for him to receive them, as he
thought, from Rose in secret. The flowers lost their value; the song
that had arisen out of them, 'Thou livest in my memory,' ceased. But
they came still. How many degrees from love gratitude may be, I have not
reckoned. I rather fear it lies on the opposite shore. From a youth to
a girl, it may yet be very tender; the more so, because their ages
commonly exclude such a sentiment, and nature seems willing to make a
transition stage of it. Evan wrote to Juliana. Incidentally he
expressed a wish to see her. Juliana was under doctor's interdict: but
she was not to be prevented from going when Evan wished her to go. They
met in the park, as before, and he talked to her five minutes through the