She
had passed through the usual ordeal attending the advent of every new
face, especially if that face be a little out of the common order of
faces. She had been inspected in the dining room, and bathroom, and
chapel, both when she went in and when she went out. She had been talked
up and criticised from the way she wore her hair to the hang of her
skirts, which here, as well as in Olney, trailed the floor with a sweep
unmistakably aristocratic and stamped her as somebody. The sacque and
hat brought from Paris had been copied by three or four, and pronounced
distingue, but ugly by as many more, while Mrs. Peter Pry, of whom there
are always one or two at every watering-place, had set herself
industriously at work to pry into her antecedents to find out just who
and what Miss Bigelow was. As the result of this research, it had been
ascertained that the young lady was remotely connected with the Bigelows
of Boston, and had something of her own--that she had spent several
years abroad, and could speak both French and German with perfect ease;
that she had been at the top of Mont Blanc, and passed part of a winter
at St.
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