I caught a glimpse of her face as she turned to Lemuel
with her light laugh. It was a vivid face, with color-
ing as brilliant as that of a wax figure, in a hair-
dresser's window. Her extraordinary hair was
bright as a flame, it lay in a big loose knot upon her
neck, the wind caught it in little tendrils and blew
it out like her scarf. I sat watching other women,
who passed in open carriages. Some were beautiful,
but more of them were faded or they had the dull
brown hair and ordinary complexion, which nature
gives to so many American women. The vivid
woman stood out against the majority like a gorgeous
pheasant Bob and I stopped to look at in the park
aviary. It was a brilliant thing which a painter
would have dashed into a picture with cadmium, In-
dian yellow, orange chrome and crimson lake. We
had watched it plume and strut about the cage, trip-



. 1



246 THE WOMAN FROM WOLVERTON

ping aside disdainfully from dull gray and brown
hens. Its splendor was almost offensive.
Then quick as a flash I remembered a girl like the
Vivid Woman who spent a few years in Wolverton.
I knew who the woman was. She had scarcely faded
in those twenty-five years. It was Jennie Weston;
Lem had been engaged to her when he was twenty.
I tried in a quick, miserable, disjointed way to re-
member all I ever heard about her. She had come
from the East to stay with an aunt who lived in
Wolverton. I met her once at a church social.
