1900 lesbian couple

I’m not sure quite what’s going on in this photo. Are they a lesbian couple (which I’m guessing would have been pretty scandalous at this time), or is the woman dressing as a man because her husband wasn’t around and a lady couldn’t sit on an ‘actual’ man’s lap without losing her reputation…?

There’s no information with the original photo, it’s just titled ‘Young couple seated in garden, c. 1900’ so no clues there. What do you think?

There’s something very similar about their profiles, so I wonder whether they’re actually sisters…

Source and copyright:  No known copyright restrictions