The woods fairly laughed in the
clear sunlight, and the soft, incessant, shifting breezes.
Leonard, in his best clothes, and with a smoother gloss on his
brown hair, sang to himself as he urged the strong-boned horses
into a trot along the levels; and Betty finally felt so quietly
happy that she forgot to be nervous. When they reached the station
they walked up and down the long platform together, until the train
from the city thundered up, and painfully restrained its speed.
Then Betty, catching sight of a fawn-colored travelling dress
issuing from the ladies' car, caught hold of Leonard's arm, and
cried: "There she is!"
Miss Bartram heard the words, and looked down with a bright, glad
expression on her face. It was not her beauty that made Leonard's
heart suddenly stop beating; for she was not considered a beauty,
in society. It was something rarer than perfect beauty, yet even
more difficult to describe,--a serene, unconscious grace, a pure,
lofty maturity of womanhood, such as our souls bow down to in the
Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio.
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