A Test of Love
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 World 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 go
and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big
restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind
of test!”
- Author Unknown