Th3 TEsT....

John Blanchard stood up ffrom 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.

John's interest in her had begun 13 months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with its words, but with the notes pencilled 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 NY City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World Was II.

During the next year and one month, the 2 grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding.

John 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 - 7pm at Grand Central Station in NY.

"You'll recognise me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel."

So at the apppointed time, he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen. I'll let John tell you what happened:

"A young women 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 spring time 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 women well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thickankled 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 women 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 will be something precious, comething perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful.

I squarred my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the women, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.

"I am Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me. May I take you to dinner?"

The women'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 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!"

"It is not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive."

Many times we often look at the looks of others and fell in love with them... ended up with sorrow and sadness as at the end of the relationship, we realise we had made the wrong choice... Are you one of them? One thing I don't like people to say to me, "I Love you" before he even got to know me in-dept..Looks are deceiving, that's what I always remind myself..

I really hope I will meet a guy like John.. A person who go for heart rather than looks... Yes, he might be disappointed at first but at last he choose to pick the women whose heart he know, didn't he? Romantic.. =)