Fairy always looked more than usually fairy-like when she was excited. Her gold curls tumbled about her face, and the big white bow which topped them stood at all sorts of flyaway angles. She poised herself on one foot, and waved her hands dramatically as she talked.
Mrs. Faulkner was charmed with the child, and being possessed of some artistic ability, she privately resolved to make a sketch of Fairy at the first opportunity.
The two sisters escorted the guests through the hall, if Fairy's hop, skip and jump could be called an escort, and Dorothy showed them the lake view from the west piazza.
Mrs. Faulkner was enthusiastic over this, and declared that nothing would induce her to stay anywhere else but at the Dorrance Domain.
Mr. Faulkner, too, was impressed by the beauty of the lake. It was always most picturesque in the late afternoon, and just now the clouds, lit up by the western sun, were especially beautiful. The lake itself was not calm, but was covered with smooth little hills of water, which here and there broke into white foam.
Some distance out, a boat could be seen, containing two people.
"That's my brother and sister," said Dorothy; "they are twins. They are fourteen, and are perhaps the noisiest of us all. You see," she went on, smiling, "I'm preparing you for the worst. Grandmother had great difficulty with the New York boarding-house keepers, because they thought the Dorrance children too lively. So I want you to be fully warned that we do make a great deal of noise. Somehow we can't help it."
"We don't yell so much as we used to," said Fairy, hopefully; "you see, Mrs. Faulkner, when we used to be cooped up in a boarding-house we just had to make an awful racket, 'cause we were so miserabubble. But here we have room enough to scamper around, and so we don't holler so much."
"I rather think we can survive your demonstrations of animal spirits," said Mr. Faulkner, with his kindly smile. "It will be a pleasant relief from the brass band which is the noise-producer over at the Horton House."
"We haven't any brass band," said Dorothy, suddenly realizing that they lacked many things popularly supposed to belong to a summer hotel.