I am Blossom Revercomb," she answered.
"Blossom?
It's a pretty name." Her gaze dwelt on him calmly for and instant, with the faintest quiver of her full white lids, which appeared to weigh heavily on her rather prominent eyes of a pale periwinkle blue.
"My real name is Keren-happuch," she said at last, after a struggle with herself, "grandma bein' a great Scripture reader, chose it when I was born--but they call me Blossom, for short." "And am I permitted, Miss Keren-happuch, to call you Blossom ?" Again she hesitated, pondering gravely.
"Mary Jo, if you unwrap your hair your mother will whip you," she said suddenly, and went on without a perceptible change of tone, "Keren-happuch is an ugly name, and I don't like it--though grandma says we oughtn't to think any of the Bible names ugly, not even Gog.

She is quite an authority on Scripture, is grandma, and she can repeat the first chapter in Chronicles backward, which the minister couldn't do when he tried." "I'd like to hear the name that would sound ugly on your lips, Miss Keren-happuch." If the sons of farmers had sought to enchant her ears with similar strains, there was no hint of it in the smiling eyes she lifted to his.
The serenity of her look added, he thought, to her resemblance to some pagan goddess--not to Artemis nor to Aphrodite, but to some creature compounded equally of earth and sky.

Io perhaps, or Europa?
By Jove he had it at last--the Europa of Veronese! "There'll have to be a big frost before the persimmons get sweet," she observed in a voice that was remarkably deep and full for a woman.
With the faint light on her classic head and her milky skin, he found a delicious piquancy in the remark.

Had she gossiped, had she even laughed, the effect would have been disastrous.

Europa, he was vaguely aware, would hardly have condescended to coquetry.