There was as yet nothing outside the car windows which they had
not known of old,--the marsh-meadows of the Lower Sacramento, tide-rivers
reflecting the sky, cattle and wild fowl, with an occasional windmill
or a duck-hunter's lodge breaking the long sweeps of low-toned color.
The morning sun was drinking up the fog, the temperature in the Pullman
steadily rising. Jackets were coming off and shirt-waists blooming out in
summer colors, giving the car a homelike appearance.
It was a saying that summer, "By their belts ye shall know them."
Shirt-waists no longer counted, since the ready-made ones for two dollars
and a half were almost as chic as the tailor-made for ten. But the belts,
the real belts, were inimitable. Sir Lancelot might have used them for his
bridle--
"Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden galaxy."
Mrs. Valentin had looked with distinct approval on a mother and daughter
who occupied the section opposite. Their impedimenta and belongings were
"all right," arguing persons with cultivated tastes, abroad for a summer
spent in divers climates, who knew what they should have and where to
get it.
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