She always sparkled in society, and she was too sweet-natured to snub "the boys," as she called them.

The smile of welcome was ever ready on her little, thin white face, the quick jest on her nimble tongue.
"We mustn't be piggy just because we are happy," she said to her husband once.

"How are they to know we are having our honeymoon ?" And then she nestled close to him, whispering, "It's quite the best honeymoon any woman ever had." To which he could make but the one reply, pressing her to his heart and kissing the red lips that mocked so merrily when the world was looking on.
She had become the hub of his existence, and day by day he watched her anxiously, grasping his happiness with a feeling that it was too great to last.
The rains set in in earnest, and the reek of the Plains rose like an evil miasma to the turbid heavens.

The atmosphere was as the interior of a steaming cauldron.

Great toadstools spread like a loathsome disease over the compound.