Van, Dottie, and Ted had been assigned their own rooms in the Erlette House "Lake Cottage." This "cottage," actually a small mansion, featured stone hearths, Federal-style chairs of antique oak, primitive American art, and a four-poster bed with a lovely handmade quilt. The Lake Cottage brimmed over with old-school East Coast Establishment virtue. Every object in its rooms sat there in timeless restraint, polished by good taste, power, and heaps of old money. Except, of course, for Van’s and Dottie’s laptops, which were like two Martian tripods out of H. G. Wells.