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In my opinion, this is THE best Valentine Story I have ever released to
my mailing list. I love it!
John Blanchard stood up from the bench straightened his Army uniform,
and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station.
He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the
rose.
His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book
off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the
notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and
insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss
Hollis Maynell.
With time and effort he located her address. She lived in New York City.
He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he
was shipped overseas for service in Work War II. During the next year and one month the
two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile
heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused.
She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like.
When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled
their first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York.
"You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my
lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but
whose face he'd never seen.
I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened: A young woman was coming toward me, her
figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes
were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit
she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice
that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips.
"Going my way, sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably, I made one step
closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell.
She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying
hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into
low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I
was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for
the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood.
Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle.
I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that
was to identify me to her.
This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better
than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my
shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt
choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and
you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?"
The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is about,
son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she
begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner,
I should tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She
said it was some kind of test!"
It's not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a
heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. "Tell me whom you love,"
Houssaye wrote, "And I will tell you who you are."
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