Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl’s charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young womanhood.  She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength.  She was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her youthfulness.  Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight.

Much of Shirley’s girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington.  From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon the landscape itself.  Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the intimate interest of private gardens.

Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished.  Gladys is a child of the spirit of mischief.  Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, too, discourses of serious matters.  Nora, in some incarnation, has seen fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases her memory.  Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to believe.  Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets.  Helen may be seen only against a background of Trojan wall.  Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready with ballads in the winter twilight.  Julia’s reserve and discretion commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter.  Anne is to be found in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket.  Hilda is a capable person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon kings ring still in her blood.  Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony.  And you may have observed that there is no button on Elizabeth’s foil; you do well not to clash wits with her.  Do you say that these ascriptions are not square with your experience?  Then verily there must have been a sad mixing of infant candidates for the font in your parish.  Shirley, in such case, will mean nothing to you.  It is a waste of time to tell you that the name may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to understand that the r and l slip into each other as ripples glide over pebbles in a brook.  And from the name to the girl—­may you be forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne’s pretty head, her brown hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with honest liking.

As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them from the door and advanced beamingly.

“Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick!  Can it be possible!  I only heard by the merest chance that you were here.  But Switzerland is the real meeting-place of the world.”