He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip.
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.