eBooks Base 2000

She
reached the outskirts of Indian Spring and the high-road at about the
time Mr. Brace had begun his fruitless patrol of the main street. Far
in the distance a faint olive-green table mountain seemed to rise
abruptly from the plain. It was the Carquinez Woods. Gathering her
spotless skirts beneath her extemporized brown domino, she set out
briskly towards them.
But her progress was scarcely free or exhilarating. She was not
accustomed to walking in a country where "buggy-riding" was considered
the only genteel young, lady-like mode of progression, and its regular
provision the expected courtesy of mankind. Always fastidiously booted,
her low-quartered shoes were charming to the eye, but hardly adapted to
the dust and inequalities of the high-road. It was true that she had
thought of buying a coarser pair at Indian Spring, but once face to
face with their uncompromising ugliness, she had faltered and fled. The
sun was unmistakably hot, but her parasol was too well known and
offered too violent a contrast to the duster for practical use.


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