For more than an hour they stood in line, bowing, smiling, accepting hands, offering greetings, a little wondering perhaps, yet none the less well assured of the attitude of this people toward their own country, and hoping there might later be substantial financial proof of its sincerity.
It was at about this time that there entered at the door near the head of the receiving line a young woman, for the time apparently quite unattended.

She was brilliantly robed, with jewels flashing at neck and wrists, clad like a queen and looking one.

Of good height and splendid carriage, her dark hair and singularly striking features might at first have caused the belief that she was one of this party of foreigners, toward whom she now advanced.

A second glance would have shown her beauty to be of that universal world-quality which makes its owner difficult to classify, although assured of approval in any quarter of the world.
[Illustration: Clad like a queen and looking one.] That this lady was acquainted with social pageants might have been in the first instant quite evidenced by her comportment here.

Many eyes turned toward her as she approached the head of the line.