There was nothing extraordinary
about Travis. She never had her vagaries, was not moody--
depressed one day and exalted the next. She was just a good,
sweet, natural, healthy-minded, healthy-bodied girl, honest,
strong, self-reliant, and good-tempered.
Though she was not yet dressed for church, there was style in her
to the pointed tips of her patent-leather slippers. She wore a
heavy black overskirt that rustled in delicious fashion over the
colored silk skirt beneath, and a white shirt-waist, striped
black, and starched to a rattling stiffness. Her neck was swathed
tight and high with a broad ribbon of white satin, while around
her waist, in place of a belt, she wore the huge dog-collar of a
St. Bernard--a chic little idea which was all her own, and of
which she was very proud.
She was as trig and trim and crisp as a crack yacht: not a pin was
loose, not a seam that did not fall in its precise right line; and
with every movement there emanated from her a barely perceptible
delicious feminine odor--an odor that was in part perfume, but
mostly a subtle, vague smell, charming beyond words, that came
from her hair, her neck, her arms--her whole sweet personality.
She was nineteen years old.
She sat down to breakfast and ate heartily, though with her
attention divided between Howard--who was atrociously bad, as
usual of a Sunday morning--and her father's plate. Mr. Bessemer
was as like as not to leave the table without any breakfast at all
unless his fruit, chops, and coffee were actually thrust under his
nose.
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