vacant.

"Is your sister--is Miss Travis going to have her breakfast now?
Is she got up yet?" inquired Victorine of Howard and Snooky, as
she pushed the cream pitcher out of Howard's reach. It was
significant of Mr. Bessemer's relations with his family that
Victorine did not address her question to him.

"Yes, yes, she's coming," said both the children, speaking
together; and Howard added: "Here she comes now."

Travis Bessemer came in. Even in San Francisco, where all women
are more or less beautiful, Travis passed for a beautiful girl.
She was young, but tall as most men, and solidly, almost heavily
built. Her shoulders were broad, her chest was deep, her neck
round and firm. She radiated health; there were exuberance and
vitality in the very touch of her foot upon the carpet, and there
was that cleanliness about her, that freshness, that suggested a
recent plunge in the surf and a "constitutional" along the beach.
One felt that here was stamina, good physical force, and fine
animal vigor. Her arms were large, her wrists were large, and her
fingers did not taper. Her hair was of a brown so light as to be
almost yellow. In fact, it would be safer to call it yellow from
the start--not golden nor flaxen, but plain, honest yellow. The
skin of her face was clean and white, except where it flushed to a
most charming pink upon her smooth, cool cheeks. Her lips were
full and red, her chin very round and a little salient. Curiously
enough, her eyes were small--small, but of the deepest, deepest
brown, and always twinkling and alight, as though she were just
ready to smile or had just done smiling, one could not say which.