“Well, Julia, if the Miss J.’s, and Miss L.’s, and Miss B.’s, look down on us, their brothers don’t. On you, I’m sure they don’t.”
“Bother their brothers! A fig for their condescension. Do you take me for a stupid, Neel? A million dollars left by my father’s will, and which must come to me at mother’s death, will account for it. Besides, unless the quicksilver in my looking-glass tells a terrible lie, I’m not such a fright.”
She might well talk thus. Than Julia Girdwood, anything less like a fright never stood in front of a mirror. Full-grown, and of perfect form, this storekeeper’s daughter had all the grand air of a duchess. The face was perfect as the figure. You could not look upon it without thoughts of love; though strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, commingled with an idea of danger. It was an aspect that suggested Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, or the beautiful murderess of Darnley.
In her air there was no awkwardness—not the slightest sign of humble origin, or the gaucherie that usually springs from it. Something of this might have been detected in the country cousin, Cornelia. But Julia Girdwood had been stepping too long on the flags of the Fifth Avenue, to be externally distinguished from the proudest damsels of that aristocratic street. Her mother’s house was in it.
“It is true, Julia,” assented her cousin; “you are both rich and beautiful. I wish I could say the same.”
“Come, little flatterer! if not the first, you are certainly the last; though neither counts for much here.”
“Why did we come here?”
“I had nothing to do with it. Mamma is answerable for that. For my part I prefer Saratoga, where there’s less pretensions about pedigree, and where a shopkeeper’s daughter is as good as his granddaughter. I wanted to go there this season. Mother objected. Nothing would satisfy her but Newport, Newport, Newport! And here we are. Thank Heaven! it won’t be for long.”
“Well, since we are here, let us at least enjoy what everybody comes for—the bathing.”
“Pretends to come for, you mean! Dipping their skins in salt water, the Miss J.’s, and L.’s, and B.’s—much has that to do with their presence at Newport! A good thing for them if it had! It might improve their complexions a little. Heaven knows they need it; and Heaven be thanked I don’t.”