CHAPTER XIX
THE VAN ARSDALE LADIES
The Van Arsdale ladies did decide to come. On the receipt of Mrs. Faulkner's note they concluded that the Dorrance Domain was just the place for them, and they immediately began to make preparations for leaving the Horton House.
"Though it's a very queer thing, Amanda," the elder Miss Van Arsdale said to her sister, "it's a very queer thing for a young girl to be proprietor of a hotel. I must confess I don't understand it. And I'm not sure I want to be mixed up with any such ridiculous doings."
"But Mrs. Faulkner says that it's all right; and that we four will be the only boarders. That seems to me very exclusive. You know the Faulkners are all right,—her mother was a Frelinghuysen. I'm not afraid to risk it, as long as they recommend it."
"Well, we'll try it for a week, as Mrs. Faulkner advised; and if we don't like the girl proprietor, we won't have to stay any longer."
"I don't know what she can be, I'm sure. She can't be of our kind."
Judging from the effect presented to the eye, the Van Arsdale ladies and Dorothy Dorrance were not of the same kind.
They were both elderly spinsters of the type that looks older than it really is, yet tries to seem younger. They were tall and spare with high cheek bones, and aquiline, aristocratic noses. These noses seemed to turn up at everything; and though literally they didn't turn up at all, yet the effect of turning up was always there. Their large, light blue eyes were capable of a powerful and penetrating gaze, that was apt to be extremely disconcerting to the object of their stare. Both ladies had really beautiful hair of a soft, gray color, which they wore rolled over high pompadours. They were wealthy, and though economical and even penurious in some respects, each possessed an inordinate love of dress, and was willing to spend large sums for gorgeous fabrics made up in the latest styles. The incongruity of these middle aged and far from beautiful spinsters, trailing around soft exquisite robes of dainty coloring, and exquisitely made, afforded much scope for wonderment and curiosity wherever they went.
But the sisters cared little or nothing for the comments passed upon them. They bought their clothes, and wore them, purely for their own selfish enjoyment; and met with stares of cold contempt, the half-sarcastic praises offered by some daring ladies at the hotel.