And nothing could have been more delightful than these sloe-brown, glinting little eyes of hers set off by her white skin and yellow hair.
She impressed one as being a very normal girl: nothing morbid about her, nothing nervous or false or overwrought. You did not expect to find her introspective. You felt sure that her mental life was not at all the result of thoughts and reflections germinating from within, but rather of impressions and sensations that came to her from without. 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.
"Papum," she called, speaking clear and distinct, as though to the deaf, "there's your coffee there at your elbow; be careful, you'll tip it over. Victorine, push his cup further on the table. Is it strong enough for you, Papum'""Eh? Ah, yes--yes--yes," murmured the old man, looking vaguely about him; "coffee, to be sure"--and he emptied the cup at a single draught, hardly knowing whether it was coffee or tea. "Now I'll take a roll," he continued, in a monotonous murmur. "Where are the rolls? Here they are. Hot rolls are bad for my digestion--I ought to eat bread. I think I eat too much. Where's my place in the paper?--always lose my place in the paper. Clever editorials this fellow Eastman writes, unbiassed by party prejudice--unbiassed--unbiassed." His voice died to a whisper.
The breakfast proceeded, Travis supervising everything that went forward, even giving directions to Victorine as to the hour for serving dinner. It was while she was talking to Victorine as to this matter that Snooky began to whine.
"Stop!"
"And tell Maggie," pursued Travis, "to fricassee her chicken, and not to have it too well done--""Sto-o-op!" whined Snooky again.
"And leave the heart out for Papum. He likes the heart--""Sto-o-op!"
"Unbiassed by prejudice," murmured Mr. Bessemer, "vigorous and to the point. I'll have another roll.""Pa, make Howard stop!"
