This effect was partly due
to liquid rouge and bismuth, but largely to happy excitement--a woman's
greatest beautifier.
Her heart was beating fast under embroidered, dove-coloured chiffon and
pale gray Shantung, a dress too elaborate for a railway journey; and she
had no eyes for the fairylike greenness of the place, the mountain-side
shadowed by tall trees, or rocks clothed in delicate ferns and spouting
forth white cascades. The full, rich summer she had left at home in the
South was early spring in the cool North. The earth was like a bride,
displaying her trousseau of lace, fall after fall of it, on green velvet
cushions, and the gold of her dowry, the splendour of her wedding gifts,
in a riot of flowers. No money coined in mints could buy diamonds such as
this bride had been given by her mother--Nature; diamonds flashing in
river and cascade upon cascade. But Carmen Gaylor had no eyes for them.
She had merely a pleasant impression that Shasta Springs seemed to be a
pretty place, and no wonder it was popular with millionaires, who built
themselves houses up there on the height, in the forest! But it was only a
passing thought, as he alighted from the train in the welcoming music of
many waters, which she hardly heard.
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