Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/130

 wander over the floor where a wonderful congregation of devils and warriors, dragons, fishes, monsters, knights, and a score of other creatures of the Carnival are dancing a motley quadrille. There is a sudden silence, then a murmur of welcome and admiration runs through the crowd. Rex with his fair girl-queen has arrived. The royal pair make their way across the stage to the loge, where seats are prepared for them. The Queen smiles and bows graciously to the people, whose loyal love and admiration she cannot fail to perceive. She is assuredly the fairest queen that sits upon a throne to-day in all this big round world. The jewels that sparkle amidst her soft blond curls lose by the contrast; the rich satin robe that shrinks back from her shoulder looks but a poor fabric beside her creamy skin. Her large blue eyes are full of sunshine, her delicate, transparent face is suffused with blushes. She is a creature of delight; not only a carnival queen, but a queen in the hearts of her friends, a fairy in her father's house. Her caressing, childish manner, to which the most confirmed woman-hater yields, is not laid aside with her every-day dress; she is to-night a queen of hearts as before, and the list of her conquests will be swelled on the morrow by more than one new victim. So innocently does this fair one win the hearts of men that I doubt if any man was ever brutal