Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/129

 vivaciously; "give me your arm. Dari, have you my fan and cloak?" The wide stairway was lined with flowers and orange-branches heavy with fruit and blossoms. Soft many-hued lights diffused their glamour over the throng of people flooding the Opera-House; to-night its dingy paint, its faded finery of twenty years ago, are forgotten. The music is as stirring, the company as numerous, the spirits as light, the women as beautiful, as ever they were in the old days of prosperity, when the Opera-House was bright and fresh as paint and paper, tinsel and brocade, could make it. To the eyes which are not dazzled by the sight of so much youth and beauty and jollity, the broken stucco of the mouldings and the faded, musty cushions of the chairs may be visible. These eyes (which ought by good rights to be at home, closed in sober sleep, and not prying into the mould beneath the rose) see other things. They see that the frocks of the fair girls are fashioned of simple fabrics, many of them bearing unmistakable marks of home production; they see that the jewels on the necks of the matrons are of no great price; they see that many a dress-coat is shiny in the seams. But to Margaret Ruysdale none of these petty details are evident. She is only aware that she is in a sea of color and light. From the loge where she sits beside Mrs. Harden, her eyes