She was tall and slender, with the established slenderness that emphasizes distinction at forty-five, when plump women often exhibit the ripeness of decay.
In a word, Mrs. Sanderson eclipsed completely her feminine contemporaries, often exciting jealous antagonisms.
The lady's superior preservation was at times exasperating, and her scornful indifference to topics usually interesting to middle life disconcerted and annoyed domestic women of her own age. Her infirmities she heroically concealed, and was never surprised into the acknowledgement of a physical weakness. The chronic afflictions of other women never moved her to sympathetic confidences. In fact, she avoided systematically the society of older women, while she ingratiated herself irresistibly with young people of both sexes.
For these reasons, Mrs. Sanderson was frequently disliked, but as few dared to oppose her openly, her sway always grew to be absolute.
CHAPTER II.
Mrs. Sanderson, at the various stations of her social pilgrimage, had managed to create fresh enthusiasms for every shrine. Each year found her alert, substituting new images for those cast down, and, withal, grading so ingeniously the declivities of time, that the world failed to detect the skillful engineering, because for her there had been none of those abrupt drops so disastrous to the grace of womanhood.
She was always in sympathy with the age. For this reason she was perpetually surrounded by young people, who referred to her upon all questions, accepting her decree as preëminent.
Her distinguished bearing and captivating manners were so infectious that, before she had been in San Gabriel a week, she was the recognized authority of the hotel.