"I seem to have made an impression," she said as her aunt came up. "I didn't know strangers were such a rarity here that people stared at them the way that man did at me. I wonder who he is and what made him look so taken by surprise."
"Oh, I suppose he didn't know that any of the summer residents had arrived," returned Miss Elliott, "and he wondered who you were and where you came from. There aren't usually any summer visitors here before the middle of June."
"I suppose that must have been it," returned Gwen, at the same time feeling that it did not quite explain matters.
At the side door, by which it seemed they were expected to enter, they met Ora. She turned away her head and hurried around to the kitchen.
"What a pretty girl," said Gwen, looking after her. "Such a lovely complexion. But, oh dear, why does she lace so painfully? Doesn't she know wasp waists are all out of style? That they belong to the early Victorian age and passed out with ringlets and high foreheads?"
"She probably doesn't know," returned Miss Elliott. "I notice that many of the girls up here still cling to the traditions of their grandmothers in more than one direction. I have heard that one, at least, died from the effects of tight lacing."
"Then they need a missionary as much as the heathen Chinee does," observed Gwen as she entered the house.
She had gone out bareheaded but she tossed aside the golf-cape, which was none too warm for out-door wear, and sat down by the window. Miss Phenie, established in a comfortable rocking-chair, was quite ready for a chat while she knitted a "sweaterette" as she called it. Miss Phosie was in the kitchen getting supper, but Miss Phenie felt that it was due to her position as elder sister to entertain the guests rather than to give a hand to the evening's work. It was always her attitude and one of which no one had ever heard Miss Phosie complain. The most that she had ever done was to remark to Almira Green: "It's very easy to be hospitable when you do the entertaining and some one else does the work." But that was under great provocation when the minister, the surveyor, the doctor and the editor of The Zephyr had all arrived on the island in one day and all had been entertained at Cap'n Ben's house because there seemed nowhere else for them to go. On that occasion Miss Phenie, as usual, had asserted her right to the position of hostess, and had left Miss Phosie alone to wash the dishes as well as to get the dinner, Ora having gone to Portland for the day.
"Well," said Almira Green to whom Miss Phosie's remark was made, "there was Cap'n Ben to do the talking, and as they was all men I don't see why Phenie was called upon to set with them all the time."