[CHAPTER XXI.]
"My love, you are simply perfect. You look like a bride."
Mrs. Carroll spoke enthusiastically, and her daughter flushed brightly with gratified pride and pleasure.
She was standing before the long cheval-glass in her dressing-room. She was about to attend a ball at Mrs. Egerton's, and her maid had just put the finishing touches to her toilet.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Carroll's admiration had broken out into enthusiastic words. Xenie's loveliness was dazzling, her toilet perfection.
She wore a dress of the rarest and costliest cream-white lace over a robe of cream-colored satin. The frosty network of the over-dress was looped here and there with diamond stars.
A necklace of diamonds was clasped around her white throat, a diamond star twinkled in the dark waves of her luxuriant hair, and the same rich jewels shone on her breast and at her tiny, shell-like ears.
Her dark and brilliant beauty shone forth regally from the costly setting.
Her eyes outrivaled the diamonds, her satin skin was as creamily fair as her satin robe, her scarlet lips were like rosebuds touched with dew.
No wonder that Mrs. Carroll caught her breath in a kind of ecstacy at the resplendent vision.