So after reading into chapter 3 of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, I have concluded that Mrs. Dorset is a witch. As the poor Lily literally turned to exit the dinner to leave for the yacht, Bertha broke the news. Wharton did an excellent job at presenting Lily as both petrified internally but also composed on the outside. "She had paled a little under the shock of the insult, but the discomposure of the surrounding face did not reflected in her own"(Wharton, 176). It seems that Bertha wanted to entangle Lily in everything bad that was happening on that bad! Lily had reached a whole new level of hard headedness while on this trip because of her experience with new people, but after this embarrassing rejection, I feel as though Lily may be in some emotional trouble and only reading more of The House of Mirth will reveal what is going on!
Chapter four also yields some rather interesting surprises as Lily return to the states through the help of Seldon and his connections. So the book says the Mrs. Peniston has passed away, but for some reason, people seem to be putting on the show of mourning, only looking for the contents of the will. "Whispered emotionally to Mrs. Herbert Melson: "I couldn't bear to see the Niagara anywhere else"(Wharton, 179)! It seems that all of this mourning is just a facade. Lily, it seems, is continuing to have problems based on money. It seems that the women at the gathering to announce the will would not touch or acknowledge Lily based on who they assumed as the sole inheritor of the will. But after the contents of the will were disclosed, they treated her like she had some sort of disease.
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