“Editha,” exclaimed her father, when he at last found his voice, “there will be no one so beautiful as yourself in the park to-night. I shall have the honor of escorting the fairest woman in Saratoga.”
“Thank you, papa. I never heard you compliment any one like that before,” laughed Editha, surprised at his enthusiasm, and never realizing how exceedingly lovely she was.
“I never had occasion, I can assure you,” he answered, as his eyes lingered proudly upon her graceful form.
Editha was not one of those variable young ladies who adopt every new fashion for dressing the hair, whether it is becoming or not.
Her hair to-night, as always, was worn in plaited bands of satin smoothness, and coiled around her shapely head, its only ornament a small cluster of daisies fastened on one side with a diamond aigrette.
Tiny daisies, in the center of whose golden heart there glittered a diamond like a drop of dew, hung in her ears, while on her arms of Parian whiteness were bracelets to match.
It would indeed be impossible to imagine a fairer vision or a more unique and attractive costume among the hundreds that would assemble that evening.
The weather was perfect, and the decorations of the park were very elaborate and elegant. Flags hung gracefully canopied over the entrance like curtains, and festooned along the fanciful frame-work.
Light frames of stars, triangles, hearts, shields, and many other devices, were fastened everywhere among the trees to support the transparent lanterns of almost magical beauty. The electric light flooded the whole scene with almost the brightness of day, and made the place seem as if touched by the wand of an enchanter.
The finest dressing of the season graced this party, and, as some one has said, “it did not require a great stretch of the imagination to convert the passing throng into elves and fairies, their raiment appearing to have been woven with the gossamer threads of the cobwebs, and out of the butterflies’ wings, as if the dew of the morning, the mist of the moon, the dew-drops gathered from the calyx of the lily, had all been collected and laid with homage at the feet of the ethereal creatures who lead captive the sons of men.”