Only Proper

Otillia Elizabeth Mason Beaureguard was a proper lady.  In an age where ladies were beginning to wear skirts that revealed their nether regions,  Miss Tilly continued to wear her button up Oxford shirts with a proper skirt that fell to a precise three and a quarter inches above her ankle.   On Sundays, the holy day, Miss Tilly wore her mother's own black lace veil as she entered the vestibule, as was proper. Lonely, but proper.

Miss Tilly also kept a proper house, and every morning she swept the accumulated dust from the ceiling to wood floors out the front door, onto the porch, and out into the yard, just like her mother had done every day of her life, and her grandmother before that, all the way back to the first proper Walker lady. 

Elton Burnside marched up Miss Tilly's sidewalk as if he owned the place, his cane tapping out a staccato rhythm.  She waited for him, remembering the years in school when Elton would pull her pigtails and try to kiss her.  Always in trouble, Elton Burnside took every reprimand and setback in stride, laughing as he sat in detention or got paddled.  Miss Tilly's mother had always said that the Burnsides were trouble, but Miss Tilly wondered if that was really true. Elton had never been proper a day in his life, and it certainly wasn't proper for him to set foot on her porch.

"You stay right there, Elton Burnside!"  She held up the broom as a warning.  Elton stopped at the bottom step and took off his hat respectfully.  Miss Tilly glared at him.

"Why, Miss Tilly!" Elton laughed. "Prickly as ever! You come on down here. I have something to give you."

Wary but curious, Miss Tilly took one step, then another, until she stood in front of Elton. As she lifted her eyes to his, he startled her completely by swiftly pressing his lips to hers.

Miss Tilly's face was warmed by the color creeping up her skin, her lips tingling from the kiss. She stared at Elton, shocked.  

"I mean to court you, Miss Tilly," Elton gazed at her.

Miss Tilly had always been a proper lady.  But maybe it was time for a little impropriety in her life, she thought.







Prompt: 
The quotation is from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë:
“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.”

The prompt is the third definition of the word color.