"I'm glad your father never lived to see these dreadful Radicals sweeping the country," she said to her daughters on this January day that before it faded into darkness would bring such changes to Clare. What the dowager really meant to express was her relief that the last earl was not alive to meet his daughter-in-law; he ought not to have been easily shocked, but marriage with an actress would certainly have shocked him greatly, and his language when shocked was bad. The effect of Dorothy's letter had already worn a little thin; the dowager's pre-figuration of her approximated more closely every moment to an old standing opinion of actresses she had formed from a large collection of letters and photographs left behind by her husband, which she had lacked the courage to burn unread. Her daughters Arabella and Constantia argued that this Dorothy must be a "top-holer" to make their brother so desperate. Last month he had taken them for several long walks and waxed so eloquent over her beauty and charm and virtue that they had accepted his point of view; with less to lose than their mother and unaware of their father's weakness, they saw no reason why an actress should not make Tony as good a wife as anybody.
"But love is blind," said the dowager. None knew the truth of this better than she. "And in any case, dear children, beauty is only skin-deep."
"Luckily for us, mother," said Arabella.
"I think you exaggerate your plainness," the dowager observed. "You do not make the least attempt to bring out your good features. You, dearest Bella, have very nice ankles; but if you wear shoes like that and never pull up your stockings their slimness escapes the eye. And you, Connie, have really beautiful ears; but when you jam your cap down on your head like that you cause them to protrude in a way that cannot be considered becoming."
The girls laughed; they were too much interested in country life to bother about their appearance. Boots were made to keep out moisture and get a good grip of muddy slopes: caps were meant to stay on one's head, not to show off one's ears. Besides, they were ugly; they had decided as much when they were still children, and, now that they were twenty-one and nineteen, would be foolish to begin repining. Arabella's ankles might be slim, but her teeth were large and prominent; her eyes were pale as the wintry sky above them; her hands were knotted and raw; her nose stuck to her face like a piece of mud thrown at a fence; her hair resembled seaweed. As for Constantia, her nose was much too large; so was her tongue; so were her hands; her eyes were globular, like marbles of brown agate; everything protruded; she was like a person who has been struck on the back of the head in a crowd.
"The question is," said Arabella, "are we to drive over to Exeter to meet them? Because if we are I must tell Crowdy to see about putting us up some sandwiches."
"Well, unless you're very eager to go," the dowager pleaded, "I should appreciate your company. Were I left quite alone, I might get a headache, and I am so anxious to appear cheerful. I think we ought to assume that Dorothy will be as nervous as we are. I think it would be kind to assume that."
"I vote for letting Deacock take the car by himself," Constantia declared. "I always feel awkward at meeting even old friends at a station, and it'll be so awfully hard to talk with the wind humming in my ears."
When the noise of the car had died away among the knolls and hollows of the great park the dowager turned to her daughters:
"It's such a fine day for the season of the year that perhaps I might take a little drive in the chaise."