She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She
was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her
youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of
the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight.
Much of Shirley's girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where
Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington.
From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon
the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus;
she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the
hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the
intimate interest of private gardens.
Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business
of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child
of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary,
too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen
fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases
her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to
believe.
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