Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/76

58 like a column on which her squarish but well contoured face was set, firm of flesh, ruddy under a thin veneer of bronze. Blue-grey eyes were frank with inquiry and suspended judgment. A mass of ash-blond hair was braided and coiled around her head. A handsome woman, a woman with no nonsense about her and of much capacity, with every inch of her body solid with good health and strength.

The face of the "slimsy lady" was not pretty, Sheridan decided, and almost immediately reversed his decision. The mouth was wide, but the corners turned up, the nose was short, but it was piquant. Her hair was either dull gold or bright bronze, he never really determined which. Her eyes were the color of cornflowers. Their blue made that of her companion's eyes almost faded but their chief charm lay in their crystalline clearness, the transparent whites, the fleck of red in the corners, the brilliance of their movement under the long lashes. And her teeth were perfect. The somewhat stilted adjective used by Jackson to describe her figure, fitted exactly. "Elegant." She was not plump, the "slimsy lady," but her breasts were delicately full and she was all lissome curves and tapering lines with daintiness of wrist and ankle.

For a few seconds the four of them appraised each other silently and then, springing to some common impulse, all smiled.

"My name is Mary Burrows," said the slimsy lady, "and this is my friend Thora Neilsen." Sheridan caught the look of affectionate gratitude flashed