No bride ever looked more beautiful or distinguished, with her gardenia complexion and red burnished hair, all set off by the velvet and dark fur.

" For there was a great difference in her present transparent, snowy whiteness, with the blue-circled eyes, to her habitual gardenia hue; even her lips were less red.

Her head was small and her face small, and short, and oval, with no wonderfully chiseled features, only the skin was quite exceptional in its white puritynot the purity of milk, but the purity of rich, white velvet, or a gardenia petal.

The extra whiteness showed even on her gardenia skin, and her great eyes gleamed sullenly from beneath her lowering brows of ink.