fair face, at first sight, suggested an agreeable delicacy. To herself
she acknowledged with pleasure that she was "spirituelle." To the
observer, after a glance at her attractive upper face, the thick jaw and
neck came as a surprise: so did the hands and feet. The feet, seen
casually in a company, were apt to be taken for the belongings of some
far stouter woman, sitting near. They were Mrs. Heth's, however; and she
had also a small round birthmark on her left temple, which a deft
arrangement of the hair almost concealed, and a small dark mustache,
which was not so fortunately placed. She was sane and sound as to
judgment, and her will had raised the House of Heth as by a
steam derrick.
Miss Heth, gazing down at three or four hardy bathers, who splashed and
shouted at the hotel float, said, laughing:
"Truly, mamma, what do you suppose the Cheritons would have given Willie
for the splendid tip?"
Mrs. Heth's frown at her newspaper deepened; otherwise she made no
response. She learned with difficulty, like a Bourbon; but many years'
experience had at last convinced her that her daughter's occasional
mocking mannerism had to be put up with. Conceivably there were people
in the world who might have liked this mild cynical way of Carlisle's,
seeing in it, not indeed a good quality, but, so to say, the seamy side
of a good quality; the lingering outpost of a good quality that had been
routed; at least the headstone over the grave of a good quality that
maybe was only buried alive. But of these people, if such there were,
Mrs. Heth was positively not one....
And Carlisle's next remark was: "What would you wear to-night, for the
occasion?... Oh, there's a big motor-boat going by like the wind."
For though she might sometimes jeer aloud over processes, the daughter
was known to be quite as serious at heart as her mother, over the great
matters of life. Otherwise, look you, she might not have been at the
Beach at all to-day. The fact was that she and mamma had not
_positively_ decided on this recuperative excursion (though they had
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