Produced by David Widger





THEIR PILGRIMAGE

By Charles Dudley Warner




I. FORTRESS MONROE

When Irene looked out of her stateroom window early in the morning of
the twentieth of March, there was a softness and luminous quality in
the horizon clouds that prophesied spring. The steamboat, which had left
Baltimore and an arctic temperature the night before, was drawing near
the wharf at Fortress Monroe, and the passengers, most of whom were
seeking a mild climate, were crowding the guards, eagerly scanning the
long facade of the Hygeia Hotel.

“It looks more like a conservatory than a hotel,” said Irene to her
father, as she joined him.

“I expect that's about what it is. All those long corridors above and
below enclosed in glass are to protect the hothouse plants of New
York and Boston, who call it a Winter Resort, and I guess there's
considerable winter in it.”

“But how charming it is--the soft sea air, the low capes yonder, the
sails in the opening shining in the haze, and the peaceful old fort! I
think it's just enchanting.”

“I suppose it is. Get a thousand people crowded into one hotel under
glass, and let 'em buzz around--that seems to be the present notion of
enjoyment. I guess your mother'll like it.”

And she did. Mrs. Benson, who appeared at the moment, a little flurried
with her hasty toilet, a stout, matronly person, rather overdressed
for traveling, exclaimed: “What a homelike looking place! I do hope the
Stimpsons are here!”

“No doubt the Stimpsons are on hand,” said Mr. Benson. “Catch them not
knowing what's the right thing to do in March! They know just as well as
you do that the Reynoldses and the Van Peagrims are here.”

The crowd of passengers, alert to register and secure rooms, hurried
up the windy wharf. The interior of the hotel kept the promise of the
outside for comfort. Behind the glass-defended verandas, in the spacious
office and general lounging-room, sea-coal fires glowed in the wide
grates, tables were heaped with newspapers and the illustrated pamphlets
in which railways and hotels set forth the advantages of leaving home;
luxurious chairs invited the lazy and the tired, and the hotel-bureau,
telegraph-office, railway-office, and post-office showed the new-comer
that even in this resort he was still in the centre of activity and
uneasiness. The Bensons, who had fortunately secured rooms a month in
advance, sat quietly waiting while the crowd filed before the register,
and took its fate from the courteous autocrat behind the counter.
“No room,” was the nearly uniform answer, and the travelers had the
satisfaction of writing their names and going their way in search of
entertainment. “We've eight hundred people stowed away,” said the clerk,
“and not a spot left for a hen to roost.”

At the end of the file Irene noticed a gentleman, clad in a
perfectly-fitting rough traveling suit, with the inevitable crocodile
hand-bag and tightly-rolled umbrella, who made no effort to enroll ahead
of any one else, but having procured some letters from the post-office
clerk, patiently waited till the rest were turned away, and then
put down his name. He might as well have written it in his hat. The
deliberation of the man, who appeared to be an old traveler, though
probably not more than thirty years of age, attracted Irene's attention,
and she could not help hearing the dialogue that followed.

“What can you do for me?”

“Nothing,” said the clerk.

“Can't you stow me away anywhere? It is Saturday, and very inconvenient
for me to go any farther.”

“Cannot help that. We haven't an inch of room.”

“Well, where can I go?”

“You can go to Baltimore. You can go to Washington; or you can go to
Richmond this afternoon. You can go anywhere.”

“Couldn't I,” said the stranger, with the same deliberation--“wouldn't
you let me go to Charleston?”

“Why,” said the clerk, a little surprised, but disposed to
accommodate--“why, yes, you can go to Charleston. If you take at
once the boat you have just left, I guess you can catch the train at
Norfolk.”

As the traveler turned and called a porter to reship his baggage, he
was met by a lady, who greeted him with the cordiality of an old
acquaintance and a volley of questions.

“Why, Mr. King, this is good luck. When did you come? have you a good
room? What, no, not going?”

Mr. King explained that he had been a resident of Hampton Roads just
fifteen minutes, and that, having had a pretty good view of the place,
he was then making his way out of the door to Charleston, without any
breakfast, because there was no room in the inn.

“Oh, that never'll do. That cannot be permitted,” said his engaging
friend, with an air of determination. “Besides, I want you to go with us
on an excursion today up the James and help me chaperon a lot of young
ladies. No, you cannot go away.”

And before Mr. Stanhope King--for that was the name the traveler had
inscribed on the register--knew exactly what had happened, by some
mysterious power which women can exercise even in a hotel, when
they choose, he found himself in possession of a room, and was
gayly breakfasting with a merry party at a little round table in the
dining-room.

“He appears to know everybody,” was Mrs. Benson's comment to Irene, as
she observed his greeting of one and another as the guests tardily came
down to breakfast. “Anyway, he's a genteel-looking party. I wonder if he
belongs to Sotor, King and Co., of New York?”

“Oh, mother,” began Irene, with a quick glance at the people at the next
table; and then, “if he is a genteel party, very likely he's a drummer.
The drummers know everybody.”

And Irene confined her attention strictly to her breakfast, and never
looked up, although Mrs. Benson kept prattling away about the young
man's appearance, wondering if his eyes were dark blue or only dark
gray, and why he didn't part his hair exactly in the middle and done
with it, and a full, close beard was becoming, and he had a good, frank
face anyway, and why didn't the Stimpsons come down; and, “Oh, there's
the Van Peagrims,” and Mrs. Benson bowed sweetly and repeatedly to
somebody across the room.

To an angel, or even to that approach to an angel in this world, a
person who has satisfied his appetite, the spectacle of a crowd of
people feeding together in a large room must be a little humiliating.
The fact is that no animal appears at its best in this necessary
occupation. But a hotel breakfast-room is not without interest. The very
way in which people enter the room is a revelation of character. Mr.
King, who was put in good humor by falling on his feet, as it were, in
such agreeable company, amused himself by studying the guests as they
entered. There was the portly, florid man, who “swelled” in, patronizing
the entire room, followed by a meek little wife and three timid
children. There was the broad, dowager woman, preceded by a meek,
shrinking little man, whose whole appearance was an apology. There was a
modest young couple who looked exceedingly self-conscious and happy, and
another couple, not quite so young, who were not conscious of anybody,
the gentleman giving a curt order to the waiter, and falling at once
to reading a newspaper, while his wife took a listless attitude, which
seemed to have become second nature. There were two very tall, very
graceful, very high-bred girls in semi-mourning, accompanied by a
nice lad in tight clothes, a model of propriety and slender physical
resources, who perfectly reflected the gracious elevation of his
sisters. There was a preponderance of women, as is apt to be the case
in such resorts. A fact explicable not on the theory that women are more
delicate than men, but that American men are too busy to take this sort
of relaxation, and that the care of an establishment, with the demands
of society and the worry of servants, so draw upon the nervous energy of
women that they are glad to escape occasionally to the irresponsibility
of hotel life. Mr. King noticed that many of the women had the
unmistakable air of familiarity with this sort of life, both in the
dining-room and at the office, and were not nearly so timid as some of
the men. And this was very observable in the case of the girls, who were
chaperoning their mothers--shrinking women who seemed a little
confused by the bustle, and a little awed by the machinery of the great
caravansary.

At length Mr. King's eye fell upon the Benson group. Usually it is
unfortunate that a young lady should be observed for the first time
at table. The act of eating is apt to be disenchanting. It needs
considerable infatuation and perhaps true love on the part of a young
man to make him see anything agreeable in this performance. However
attractive a girl may be, the man may be sure that he is not in love
if his admiration cannot stand this test. It is saying a great deal
for Irene that she did stand this test even under the observation of
a stranger, and that she handled her fork, not to put too fine a point
upon it, in a manner to make the fastidious Mr. King desirous to see
more of her. I am aware that this is a very unromantic view to take of
one of the sweetest subjects in life, and I am free to confess that I
should prefer that Mr. King should first have seen Irene leaning on the
balustrade of the gallery, with a rose in her hand, gazing out over the
sea with “that far-away look in her eyes.” It would have made it much
easier for all of us. But it is better to tell the truth, and let
the girl appear in the heroic attitude of being superior to her
circumstances.

Presently Mr. King said to his friend, Mrs. Cortlandt, “Who is that
clever-looking, graceful girl over there?”

“That,” said Mrs. Cortlandt, looking intently in the direction
indicated--“why, so it is; that's just the thing,” and without another
word she darted across the room, and Mr. King saw her in animated
conversation with the young lady. Returning with satisfaction expressed
in her face, she continued, “Yes, she'll join our party--without her
mother. How lucky you saw her!”

“Well! Is it the Princess of Paphlagonia?”

“Oh, I forgot you were not in Washington last winter. That's Miss
Benson; just charming; you'll see. Family came from Ohio somewhere.
You'll see what they are--but Irene! Yes, you needn't ask; they've
got money, made it honestly. Began at the bottom--as if they were in
training for the presidency, you know--the mother hasn't got used to
it as much as the father. You know how it is. But Irene has had every
advantage--the best schools, masters, foreign travel, everything. Poor
girl! I'm sorry for her. Sometimes I wish there wasn't any such thing as
education in this country, except for the educated. She never shows it;
but of course she must see what her relatives are.”

The Hotel Hygeia has this advantage, which is appreciated, at least
by the young ladies. The United States fort is close at hand, with
its quota of young officers, who have the leisure in times of peace
to prepare for war, domestic or foreign; and there is a naval station
across the bay, with vessels that need fashionable inspection.
Considering the acknowledged scarcity of young men at watering-places,
it is the duty of a paternal government to place its military and naval
stations close to the fashionable resorts, so that the young women who
are studying the german [(dance) D.W.] and other branches of the life
of the period can have agreeable assistants. It is the charm of Fortress
Monroe that its heroes are kept from ennui by the company assembled
there, and that they can be of service to society.

When Mrs. Cortlandt assembled her party on the steam-tug chartered by
her for the excursion, the army was very well represented. With the
exception of the chaperons and a bronzed veteran, who was inclined to
direct the conversation to his Indian campaigns in the Black Hills, the
company was young, and of the age and temper in which everything seems
fair in love and war, and one that gave Mr. King, if he desired it, an
opportunity of studying the girl of the period--the girl who impresses
the foreigner with her extensive knowledge of life, her fearless freedom
of manner, and about whom he is apt to make the mistake of supposing
that this freedom has not perfectly well-defined limits. It was a
delightful day, such as often comes, even in winter, within the Capes
of Virginia; the sun was genial, the bay was smooth, with only a light
breeze that kept the water sparkling brilliantly, and just enough tonic
in the air to excite the spirits. The little tug, which was pretty
well packed with the merry company, was swift, and danced along in an
exhilarating manner. The bay, as everybody knows, is one of the most
commodious in the world, and would be one of the most beautiful if it
had hills to overlook it. There is, to be sure, a tranquil beauty in
its wooded headlands and long capes, and it is no wonder that the early
explorers were charmed with it, or that they lost their way in its
inlets, rivers, and bays. The company at first made a pretense of trying
to understand its geography, and asked a hundred questions about the
batteries, and whence the Merrimac appeared, and where the Congress
was sunk, and from what place the Monitor darted out upon its big
antagonist. But everything was on a scale so vast that it was difficult
to localize these petty incidents (big as they were in consequences),
and the party soon abandoned history and geography for the enjoyment of
the moment. Song began to take the place of conversation. A couple of
banjos were produced, and both the facility and the repertoire of the
young ladies who handled them astonished Irene. The songs were of love
and summer seas, chansons in French, minor melodies in Spanish, plain
declarations of affection in distinct English, flung abroad with classic
abandon, and caught up by the chorus in lilting strains that partook of
the bounding, exhilarating motion of the little steamer. Why, here is
material, thought King, for a troupe of bacchantes, lighthearted leaders
of a summer festival. What charming girls, quick of wit, dashing in
repartee, who can pick the strings, troll a song, and dance a brando!

“It's like sailing over the Bay of Naples,” Irene was saying to
Mr. King, who had found a seat beside her in the little cabin; “the
guitar-strumming and the impassioned songs, only that always seems to me
a manufactured gayety, an attempt to cheat the traveler into the belief
that all life is a holiday. This is spontaneous.”

“Yes, and I suppose the ancient Roman gayety, of which the Neapolitan
is an echo, was spontaneous once. I wonder if our society is getting to
dance and frolic along like that of old at Baiae!”

“Oh, Mr. King, this is an excursion. I assure you the American girl is a
serious and practical person most of the time. You've been away so long
that your standards are wrong. She's not nearly so knowing as she seems
to be.”

The boat was preparing to land at Newport News--a sand bank, with a
railway terminus, a big elevator, and a hotel. The party streamed along
in laughing and chatting groups, through the warehouse and over the
tracks and the sandy hillocks to the hotel. On the way they captured
a novel conveyance, a cart with an ox harnessed in the shafts, the
property of an aged negro, whose white hair and variegated raiment
proclaimed him an ancient Virginian, a survival of the war. The company
chartered this establishment, and swarmed upon it till it looked like a
Neapolitan 'calesso', and the procession might have been mistaken for a
harvest-home--the harvest of beauty and fashion. The hotel was captured
without a struggle on the part of the regular occupants, a dance
extemporized in the dining-room, and before the magnitude of the
invasion was realized by the garrison, the dancing feet and the laughing
girls were away again, and the little boat was leaping along in the
Elizabeth River towards the Portsmouth Navy-yard.

It isn't a model war establishment this Portsmouth yard, but it is
a pleasant resort, with its stately barracks and open square and
occasional trees. In nothing does the American woman better show her
patriotism than in her desire to inspect naval vessels and understand
dry-docks under the guidance of naval officers. Besides some old war
hulks at the station, there were a couple of training-ships getting
ready for a cruise, and it made one proud of his country to see the
interest shown by our party in everything on board of them, patiently
listening to the explanation of the breech-loading guns, diving down
into the between-decks, crowded with the schoolboys, where it is
impossible for a man to stand upright and difficult to avoid the stain
of paint and tar, or swarming in the cabin, eager to know the mode of
the officers' life at sea. So these are the little places where they
sleep? and here is where they dine, and here is a library--a haphazard
case of books in the saloon.

It was in running her eyes over these that a young lady discovered
that the novels of Zola were among the nautical works needed in the
navigation of a ship of war.

On the return--and the twenty miles seemed short enough--lunch was
served, and was the occasion of a good deal of hilarity and innocent
badinage. There were those who still sang, and insisted on sipping the
heel-taps of the morning gayety; but was King mistaken in supposing that
a little seriousness had stolen upon the party--a serious intention,
namely, between one and another couple? The wind had risen, for one
thing, and the little boat was so tossed about by the vigorous waves
that the skipper declared it would be imprudent to attempt to land
on the Rip-Raps. Was it the thought that the day was over, and that
underneath all chaff and hilarity there was the question of settling in
life to be met some time, which subdued a little the high spirits, and
gave an air of protection and of tenderness to a couple here and there?
Consciously, perhaps, this entered into the thought of nobody; but still
the old story will go on, and perhaps all the more rapidly under a mask
of raillery and merriment.

There was great bustling about, hunting up wraps and lost parasols and
mislaid gloves, and a chorus of agreement on the delight of the day,
upon going ashore, and Mrs. Cortlandt, who looked the youngest and
most animated of the flock, was quite overwhelmed with thanks and
congratulations upon the success of her excursion.

“Yes, it was perfect; you've given us all a great deal of pleasure, Mrs.
Cortlandt,” Mr. King was saying, as he stood beside her, watching the
exodus.

Perhaps Mrs. Cortlandt fancied his eyes were following a particular
figure, for she responded, “And how did you like her?”

“Like her--Miss Benson? Why, I didn't see much of her. I thought she was
very intelligent--seemed very much interested when Lieutenant Green was
explaining to her what made the drydock dry--but they were all that. Did
you say her eyes were gray? I couldn't make out if they were not rather
blue after all--large, changeable sort of eyes, long lashes; eyes that
look at you seriously and steadily, without the least bit of coquetry
or worldliness; eyes expressing simplicity and interest in what you are
saying--not in you, but in what you are saying. So few women know how
to listen; most women appear to be thinking of themselves and the effect
they are producing.”

Mrs. Cortlandt laughed. “Ah; I see. And a little 'sadness' in them,
wasn't there? Those are the most dangerous eyes. The sort that follow
you, that you see in the dark at night after the gas is turned off.”

“I haven't the faculty of seeing things in the dark, Mrs. Cortlandt. Oh,
there's the mother!” And the shrill voice of Mrs. Benson was heard, “We
was getting uneasy about you. Pa says a storm's coming, and that you'd
be as sick as sick.”

The weather was changing. But that evening the spacious hotel,
luxurious, perfectly warmed, and well lighted, crowded with an agreeable
if not a brilliant company--for Mr. King noted the fact that none of
the gentlemen dressed for dinner--seemed all the more pleasant for the
contrast with the weather outside. Thus housed, it was pleasant to
hear the waves dashing against the breakwater. Just by chance, in the
ballroom, Mr. King found himself seated by Mrs. Benson and a group of
elderly ladies, who had the perfunctory air of liking the mild gayety of
the place. To one of them Mr. King was presented, Mrs. Stimpson--a
stout woman with a broad red face and fishy eyes, wearing an elaborate
head-dress with purple flowers, and attired as if she were expecting
to take a prize. Mrs. Stimpson was loftily condescending, and asked
Mr. King if this was his first visit. She'd been coming here years and
years; never could get through the spring without a few weeks at the
Hygeia. Mr. King saw a good many people at this hotel who seemed to
regard it as a home.

“I hope your daughter, Mrs. Benson, was not tired out with the rather
long voyage today.”

“Not a mite. I guess she enjoyed it. She don't seem to enjoy most
things. She's got everything heart can wish at home. I don't know how it
is. I was tellin' pa, Mr. Benson, today that girls ain't what they used
to be in my time. Takes more to satisfy 'em. Now my daughter, if I say
it as shouldn't, Mr. King, there ain't a better appearin,' nor smarter,
nor more dutiful girl anywhere--well, I just couldn't live without her;
and she's had the best schools in the East and Europe; done all Europe
and Rome and Italy; and after all, somehow, she don't seem contented in
Cyrusville--that's where we live in Ohio--one of the smartest places in
the state; grown right up to be a city since we was married. She never
says anything, but I can see. And we haven't spared anything on our
house. And society--there's a great deal more society than I ever had.”

Mr. King might have been astonished at this outpouring if he had not
observed that it is precisely in hotels and to entire strangers that
some people are apt to talk with less reserve than to intimate friends.

“I've no doubt,” he said, “you have a lovely home in Cyrusville.”

“Well, I guess it's got all the improvements. Pa, Mr. Benson, said that
he didn't know of anything that had been left out, and we had a man up
from Cincinnati, who did all the furnishing before Irene came home.”

“Perhaps your daughter would have preferred to furnish it herself?”

“Mebbe so. She said it was splendid, but it looked like somebody else's
house. She says the queerest things sometimes. I told Mr. Benson that I
thought it would be a good thing to go away from home a little while and
travel round. I've never been away much except in New York, where Mr.
Benson has business a good deal. We've been in Washington this winter.”

“Are you going farther south?”

“Yes; we calculate to go down to the New Orleans Centennial. Pa wants
to see the Exposition, and Irene wants to see what the South looks like,
and so do I. I suppose it's perfectly safe now, so long after the war?”

“Oh, I should say so.”

“That's what Mr. Benson says. He says it's all nonsense the talk about
what the South 'll do now the Democrats are in. He says the South wants
to make money, and wants the country prosperous as much as anybody. Yes,
we are going to take a regular tour all summer round to the different
places where people go. Irene calls it a pilgrimage to the holy places
of America. Pa thinks we'll get enough of it, and he's determined we
shall have enough of it for once. I suppose we shall. I like to travel,
but I haven't seen any place better than Cyrusville yet.”

As Irene did not make her appearance, Mr. King tore himself away from
this interesting conversation and strolled about the parlors, made
engagements to take early coffee at the fort, to go to church with Mrs.
Cortlandt and her friends, and afterwards to drive over to Hampton and
see the copper and other colored schools, talked a little politics over
a late cigar, and then went to bed, rather curious to see if the eyes
that Mrs. Cortlandt regarded as so dangerous would appear to him in the
darkness.

When he awoke, his first faint impressions were that the Hygeia had
drifted out to sea, and then that a dense fog had drifted in and
enveloped it. But this illusion was speedily dispelled. The window-ledge
was piled high with snow. Snow filled the air, whirled about by a gale
that was banging the window-shutters and raging exactly like a Northern
tempest.

It swirled the snow about in waves and dark masses interspersed with
rifts of light, dark here and luminous there. The Rip-Raps were lost to
view. Out at sea black clouds hung in the horizon, heavy reinforcements
for the attacking storm. The ground was heaped with the still
fast-falling snow--ten inches deep he heard it said when he descended.
The Baltimore boat had not arrived, and could not get in. The waves at
the wharf rolled in, black and heavy, with a sullen beat, and the sky
shut down close to the water, except when a sudden stronger gust of wind
cleared a luminous space for an instant. Stormbound: that is what the
Hygeia was--a winter resort without any doubt.

The hotel was put to a test of its qualities. There was no getting
abroad in such a storm. But the Hygeia appeared at its best in this
emergency. The long glass corridors, where no one could venture in
the arctic temperature, gave, nevertheless, an air of brightness and
cheerfulness to the interior, where big fires blazed, and the company
were exalted into good-fellowship and gayety--a decorous Sunday
gayety--by the elemental war from which they were securely housed.

If the defenders of their country in the fortress mounted guard that
morning, the guests at the Hygeia did not see them, but a good many of
them mounted guard later at the hotel, and offered to the young
ladies there that protection which the brave like to give the fair.
Notwithstanding this, Mr. Stanhope King could not say the day was dull.
After a morning presumably spent over works of a religious character,
some of the young ladies, who had been the life of the excursion the
day before, showed their versatility by devising serious amusements
befitting the day, such as twenty questions on Scriptural subjects,
palmistry, which on another day is an aid to mild flirtation, and an
exhibition of mind-reading, not public--oh, dear, no--but with a favored
group in a private parlor. In none of these groups, however, did Mr.
King find Miss Benson, and when he encountered her after dinner in
the reading-room, she confessed that she had declined an invitation to
assist at the mind-reading, partly from a lack of interest, and partly
from a reluctance to dabble in such things.

“Surely you are not uninterested in what is now called psychical
research?” he asked.

“That depends,” said Irene. “If I were a physician, I should like to
watch the operation of the minds of 'sensitives' as a pathological
study. But the experiments I have seen are merely exciting and
unsettling, without the least good result, with a haunting notion that
you are being tricked or deluded. It is as much as I can do to try and
know my own mind, without reading the minds of others.”

“But you cannot help the endeavor to read the mind of a person with whom
you are talking.”

“Oh, that is different. That is really an encounter of wits, for you
know that the best part of a conversation is the things not said. What
they call mindreading is a vulgar business compared to this. Don't you
think so, Mr. King?”

What Mr. King was actually thinking was that Irene's eyes were the most
unfathomable blue he ever looked into, as they met his with perfect
frankness, and he was wondering if she were reading his present state of
mind; but what he said was, “I think your sort of mind-reading is a
good deal more interesting than the other,” and he might have added,
dangerous. For a man cannot attempt to find out what is in a woman's
heart without a certain disturbance of his own. He added, “So you think
our society is getting too sensitive and nervous, and inclined to make
dangerous mental excursions?”

“I'm afraid I do not think much about such things,” Irene replied,
looking out of the window into the storm. “I'm content with a very
simple faith, even if it is called ignorance.”

Mr. King was thinking, as he watched the clear, spirited profile of the
girl shown against the white tumult in the air, that he should like to
belong to the party of ignorance himself, and he thought so long about
it that the subject dropped, and the conversation fell into ordinary
channels, and Mrs. Benson appeared. She thought they would move on as
soon as the storm was over. Mr. King himself was going south in the
morning, if travel were possible. When he said good-by, Mrs. Benson
expressed the pleasure his acquaintance had given them, and hoped they
should see him in Cyrusville. Mr. King looked to see if this invitation
was seconded in Irene's eyes; but they made no sign, although she gave
him her hand frankly, and wished him a good journey.

The next morning he crossed to Norfolk, was transported through the
snow-covered streets on a sledge, and took his seat in the cars for the
most monotonous ride in the country, that down the coast-line.

When next Stanhope King saw Fortress Monroe it was in the first days of
June. The summer which he had left in the interior of the Hygeia was now
out-of-doors. The winter birds had gone north; the summer birds had not
yet come. It was the interregnum, for the Hygeia, like Venice, has two
seasons, one for the inhabitants of colder climes, and the other for
natives of the country. No spot, thought our traveler, could be more
lovely. Perhaps certain memories gave it a charm, not well defined,
but still gracious. If the house had been empty, which it was far from
being, it would still have been peopled for him. Were they all such
agreeable people whom he had seen there in March, or has one girl the
power to throw a charm over a whole watering-place? At any rate, the
place was full of delightful repose. There was movement enough upon
the water to satisfy one's lazy longing for life, the waves lapped
soothingly along the shore, and the broad bay, sparkling in the sun, was
animated with boats, which all had a holiday air. Was it not enough to
come down to breakfast and sit at the low, broad windows and watch the
shifting panorama? All about the harbor slanted the white sails; at
intervals a steamer was landing at the wharf or backing away from it;
on the wharf itself there was always a little bustle, but no noise, some
pretense of business, and much actual transaction in the way of idle
attitudinizing, the colored man in castoff clothes, and the colored
sister in sun-bonnet or turban, lending themselves readily to the
picturesque; the scene changed every minute, the sail of a tiny boat was
hoisted or lowered under the window, a dashing cutter with its uniformed
crew was pulling off to the German man-of-war, a puffing little tug
dragged along a line of barges in the distance, and on the horizon a
fleet of coasters was working out between the capes to sea. In the open
window came the fresh morning breeze, and only the softened sounds of
the life outside. The ladies came down in cool muslin dresses, and added
the needed grace to the picture as they sat breakfasting by the windows,
their figures in silhouette against the blue water.

No wonder our traveler lingered there a little! Humanity called him, for
one thing, to drive often with humanely disposed young ladies round
the beautiful shore curve to visit the schools for various colors at
Hampton. Then there was the evening promenading on the broad verandas
and out upon the miniature pier, or at sunset by the water-batteries
of the old fort--such a peaceful old fortress as it is. All the morning
there were “inspections” to be attended, and nowhere could there be
seen a more agreeable mingling of war and love than the spacious,
tree-planted interior of the fort presented on such occasions. The
shifting figures of the troops on parade; the martial and daring
manoeuvres of the regimental band; the groups of ladies seated on
benches under the trees, attended by gallants in uniform, momentarily
off duty and full of information, and by gallants not in uniform and
never off duty and desirous to learn; the ancient guns with French arms
and English arms, reminiscences of Yorktown, on one of which a pretty
girl was apt to be perched in the act of being photographed--all this
was enough to inspire any man to be a countryman and a lover. It is
beautiful to see how fearless the gentle sex is in the presence of
actual war; the prettiest girls occupied the front and most exposed
seats; and never flinched when the determined columns marched down on
them with drums beating and colors flying, nor showed much relief when
they suddenly wheeled and marched to another part of the parade in
search of glory. And the officers' quarters in the casemates--what will
not women endure to serve their country! These quarters are mere tunnels
under a dozen feet of earth, with a door on the parade side and a
casement window on the outside--a damp cellar, said to be cool in the
height of summer. The only excuse for such quarters is that the
women and children will be comparatively safe in case the fortress is
bombarded.

The hotel and the fortress at this enchanting season, to say nothing of
other attractions, with laughing eyes and slender figures, might well
have detained Mr. Stanhope King, but he had determined upon a sort of
roving summer among the resorts of fashion and pleasure. After a long
sojourn abroad, it seemed becoming that he should know something of
the floating life of his own country. His determination may have been
strengthened by the confession of Mrs. Benson that her family were
intending an extensive summer tour. It gives a zest to pleasure to have
even an indefinite object, and though the prospect of meeting Irene
again was not definite, it was nevertheless alluring. There was
something about her, he could not tell what, different from the women he
had met in France. Indeed, he went so far as to make a general formula
as to the impression the American women made on him at Fortress
Monroe--they all appeared to be innocent.





II. CAPE MAY, ATLANTIC CITY

“Of course you will not go to Cape May till the season opens. You
might as well go to a race-track the day there is no race.” It was Mrs.
Cortlandt who was speaking, and the remonstrance was addressed to Mr.
Stanhope King, and a young gentleman, Mr. Graham Forbes, who had
just been presented to her as an artist, in the railway station
at Philadelphia, that comfortable home of the tired and bewildered
traveler. Mr. Forbes, with his fresh complexion, closely cropped hair,
and London clothes, did not look at all like the traditional artist,
although the sharp eyes of Mrs. Cortlandt detected a small sketch-book
peeping out of his side pocket.

“On the contrary, that is why we go,” said Mr. King. “I've a fancy that
I should like to open a season once myself.”

“Besides,” added Mr. Forbes, “we want to see nature unadorned. You know,
Mrs. Cortlandt, how people sometimes spoil a place.”

“I'm not sure,” answered the lady, laughing, “that people have not
spoiled you two and you need a rest. Where else do you go?”

“Well, I thought,” replied Mr. King, “from what I heard, that Atlantic
City might appear best with nobody there.”

“Oh, there's always some one there. You know, it is a winter resort
now. And, by the way--But there's my train, and the young ladies are
beckoning to me.” (Mrs. Cortlandt was never seen anywhere without a
party of young ladies.) “Yes, the Bensons passed through Washington the
other day from the South, and spoke of going to Atlantic City to tone up
a little before the season, and perhaps you know that Mrs. Benson took a
great fancy to you, Mr. King. Good-by, au revoir,” and the lady was gone
with her bevy of girls, struggling in the stream that poured towards one
of the wicket-gates.

“Atlantic City? Why, Stanhope, you don't think of going there also?”

“I didn't think of it, but, hang it all, my dear fellow, duty is
duty. There are some places you must see in order to be well informed.
Atlantic City is an important place; a great many of its inhabitants
spend their winters in Philadelphia.”

“And this Mrs. Benson?”

“No, I'm not going down there to see Mrs. Benson.”

Expectancy was the word when our travelers stepped out of the car at
Cape May station. Except for some people who seemed to have business
there, they were the only passengers. It was the ninth of June.
Everything was ready--the sea, the sky, the delicious air, the long line
of gray-colored coast, the omnibuses, the array of hotel tooters. As
they stood waiting in irresolution a grave man of middle age and a
disinterested manner sauntered up to the travelers, and slipped into
friendly relations with them. It was impossible not to incline to a
person so obliging and well stocked with local information. Yes, there
were several good hotels open. It didn't make much difference; there was
one near at hand, not pretentious, but probably as comfortable as any.
People liked the table; last summer used to come there from other hotels
to get a meal. He was going that way, and would walk along with them.
He did, and conversed most interestingly on the way. Our travelers
felicitated themselves upon falling into such good hands, but when
they reached the hotel designated it had such a gloomy and in fact
boardinghouse air that they hesitated, and thought they would like to
walk on a little farther and see the town before settling. And their
friend appeared to feel rather grieved about it, not for himself, but
for them. He had moreover, the expression of a fisherman who has lost a
fish after he supposed it was securely hooked. But our young friends had
been angled for in a good many waters, and they told the landlord, for
it was the landlord, that while they had no doubt his was the best hotel
in the place, they would like to look at some not so good. The one that
attracted them, though they could not see in what the attraction lay,
was a tall building gay with fresh paint in many colors, some pretty
window balconies, and a portico supported by high striped columns that
rose to the fourth story. They were fond of color, and were taken by
six little geraniums planted in a circle amid the sand in front of the
house, which were waiting for the season to open before they began to
grow. With hesitation they stepped upon the newly varnished piazza and
the newly varnished office floor, for every step left a footprint. The
chairs, disposed in a long line on the piazza, waiting for guests, were
also varnished, as the artist discovered when he sat in one of them and
was held fast. It was all fresh and delightful. The landlord and the
clerks had smiles as wide as the open doors; the waiters exhibited in
their eagerness a good imitation of unselfish service.

It was very pleasant to be alone in the house, and to be the
first-fruits of such great expectations. The first man of the season
is in such a different position from the last. He is like the King of
Bavaria alone in his royal theatre. The ushers give him the best seat in
the house, he hears the tuning of the instruments, the curtain is about
to rise, and all for him. It is a very cheerful desolation, for it has a
future, and everything quivers with the expectation of life and gayety.
Whereas the last man is like one who stumbles out among the empty
benches when the curtain has fallen and the play is done. Nothing is
so melancholy as the shabbiness of a watering-place at the end of the
season, where is left only the echo of past gayety, the last guests are
scurrying away like leaves before the cold, rising wind, the varnish
has worn off, shutters are put up, booths are dismantled, the shows are
packing up their tawdry ornaments, and the autumn leaves collect in the
corners of the gaunt buildings.

Could this be the Cape May about which hung so many traditions of
summer romance? Where were those crowds of Southerners, with slaves and
chariots, and the haughtiness of a caste civilization, and the belles
from Baltimore and Philadelphia and Charleston and Richmond, whose
smiles turned the heads of the last generation? Had that gay society
danced itself off into the sea, and left not even a phantom of itself
behind? As he sat upon the veranda, King could not rid himself of
the impression that this must be a mocking dream, this appearance of
emptiness and solitude. Why, yes, he was certainly in a delusion, at
least in a reverie. The place was alive. An omnibus drove to the door
(though no sound of wheels was heard); the waiters rushed out, a fat man
descended, a little girl was lifted down, a pretty woman jumped from
the steps with that little extra bound on the ground which all women
confessedly under forty always give when they alight from a vehicle, a
large woman lowered herself cautiously out, with an anxious look, and
a file of men stooped and emerged, poking their umbrellas and canes in
each other's backs. Mr. King plainly saw the whole party hurry into the
office and register their names, and saw the clerk repeatedly touch a
bell and throw back his head and extend his hand to a servant. Curious
to see who the arrivals were, he went to the register. No names were
written there. But there were other carriages at the door, there was a
pile of trunks on the veranda, which he nearly stumbled over, although
his foot struck nothing, and the chairs were full, and people were
strolling up and down the piazza. He noticed particularly one couple
promenading--a slender brunette, with a brilliant complexion; large dark
eyes that made constant play--could it be the belle of Macon?--and
a gentleman of thirty-five, in black frock-coat, unbuttoned, with a
wide-brimmed soft hat-clothes not quite the latest style--who had a good
deal of manner, and walked apart from the young lady, bending towards
her with an air of devotion. Mr. King stood one side and watched the
endless procession up and down, up and down, the strollers, the mincers,
the languid, the nervous steppers; noted the eye-shots, the flashing or
the languishing look that kills, and never can be called to account for
the mischief it does; but not a sound did he hear of the repartee and
the laughter. The place certainly was thronged. The avenue in front was
crowded with vehicles of all sorts; there were groups strolling on the
broad beach-children with their tiny pails and shovels digging pits
close to the advancing tide, nursery-maids in fast colors, boys in
knickerbockers racing on the beach, people lying on the sand, resolute
walkers, whose figures loomed tall in the evening light, doing their
constitutional. People were passing to and fro on the long iron pier
that spider-legged itself out into the sea; the two rooms midway were
filled with sitters taking the evening breeze; and the large ball and
music room at the end, with its spacious outside promenade-yes, there
were dancers there, and the band was playing. Mr. King could see the
fiddlers draw their bows, and the corneters lift up their horns and get
red in the face, and the lean man slide his trombone, and the drummer
flourish his sticks, but not a note of music reached him. It might have
been a performance of ghosts for all the effect at this distance. Mr.
King remarked upon this dumb-show to a gentleman in a blue coat
and white vest and gray hat, leaning against a column near him. The
gentleman made no response. It was most singular. Mr. King stepped back
to be out of the way of some children racing down the piazza, and, half
stumbling, sat down in the lap of a dowager--no, not quite; the chair
was empty, and he sat down in the fresh varnish, to which his clothes
stuck fast. Was this a delusion? No. The tables were filled in the
dining-room, the waiters were scurrying about, there were ladies on the
balconies looking dreamily down upon the animated scene below; all the
movements of gayety and hilarity in the height of a season. Mr. King
approached a group who were standing waiting for a carriage, but they
did not see him, and did not respond to his trumped-up question about
the next train. Were these, then, shadows, or was he a spirit himself?
Were these empty omnibuses and carriages that discharged ghostly
passengers? And all this promenading and flirting and languishing and
love-making, would it come to nothing-nothing more than usual? There was
a charm about it all--the movement, the color, the gray sand, and the
rosy blush on the sea--a lovely place, an enchanted place. Were these
throngs the guests that were to come, or those that had been herein
other seasons? Why could not the former “materialize” as well as the
latter? Is it not as easy to make nothing out of what never yet existed
as out of what has ceased to exist? The landlord, by faith, sees all
this array which is prefigured so strangely to Mr. King; and his comely
young wife sees it and is ready for it; and the fat son at the supper
table--a living example of the good eating to be had here--is serene,
and has the air of being polite and knowing to a houseful. This scrap
of a child, with the aplomb of a man of fifty, wise beyond his fatness,
imparts information to the travelers about the wine, speaks to the
waiter with quiet authority, and makes these mature men feel like boys
before the gravity of our perfect flower of American youth who has known
no childhood. This boy at least is no phantom; the landlord is real, and
the waiters, and the food they bring.

“I suppose,” said Mr. King to his friend, “that we are opening the
season. Did you see anything outdoors?”

“Yes; a horseshoe-crab about a mile below here on the smooth sand, with
a long dotted trail behind him, a couple of girls in a pony-cart
who nearly drove over me, and a tall young lady with a red parasol,
accompanied by a big black-and-white dog, walking rapidly, close to the
edge of the sea, towards the sunset. It's just lovely, the silvery sweep
of coast in this light.”

“It seems a refined sort of place in its outlines, and quietly
respectable. They tell me here that they don't want the excursion crowds
that overrun Atlantic City, but an Atlantic City man, whom I met at the
pier, said that Cape May used to be the boss, but that Atlantic City had
got the bulge on it now--had thousands to the hundreds here. To get the
bulge seems a desirable thing in America, and I think we'd better see
what a place is like that is popular, whether fashion recognizes it or
not.”

The place lost nothing in the morning light, and it was a sparkling
morning with a fresh breeze. Nature, with its love of simple, sweeping
lines, and its feeling for atmospheric effect, has done everything for
the place, and bad taste has not quite spoiled it. There is a sloping,
shallow beach, very broad, of fine, hard sand, excellent for driving
or for walking, extending unbroken three miles down to Cape May Point,
which has hotels and cottages of its own, and lifesaving and signal
stations. Off to the west from this point is the long sand line to Cape
Henlopen, fourteen miles away, and the Delaware shore. At Cape May Point
there is a little village of painted wood houses, mostly cottages to
let, and a permanent population of a few hundred inhabitants. From the
pier one sees a mile and a half of hotels and cottages, fronting south,
all flaming, tasteless, carpenter's architecture, gay with paint.
The sea expanse is magnificent, and the sweep of beach is fortunately
unencumbered, and vulgarized by no bath-houses or show-shanties. The
bath-houses are in front of the hotels and in their enclosures; then
come the broad drive, and the sand beach, and the sea. The line is
broken below by the lighthouse and a point of land, whereon stands the
elephant. This elephant is not indigenous, and he stands alone in the
sand, a wooden sham without an explanation. Why the hotel-keeper's mind
along the coast regards this grotesque structure as a summer attraction
it is difficult to see. But when one resort had him, he became a
necessity everywhere. The travelers walked down to this monster, climbed
the stairs in one of his legs, explored the rooms, looked out from the
saddle, and pondered on the problem. This beast was unfinished within
and unpainted without, and already falling into decay. An elephant on
the desert, fronting the Atlantic Ocean, had, after all, a picturesque
aspect, and all the more so because he was a deserted ruin.

The elephant was, however, no emptier than the cottages about which
our friends strolled. But the cottages were all ready, the rows of new
chairs stood on the fresh piazzas, the windows were invitingly open, the
pathetic little patches of flowers in front tried hard to look festive
in the dry sands, and the stout landladies in their rocking-chairs
calmly knitted and endeavored to appear as if they expected nobody, but
had almost a houseful.

Yes, the place was undeniably attractive. The sea had the blue of Nice;
why must we always go to the Mediterranean for an aqua marina, for
poetic lines, for delicate shades? What charming gradations had this
picture-gray sand, blue waves, a line of white sails against the pale
blue sky! By the pier railing is a bevy of little girls grouped about an
ancient colored man, the very ideal old Uncle Ned, in ragged, baggy, and
disreputable clothes, lazy good-nature oozing out of every pore of
him, kneeling by a telescope pointed to a bunch of white sails on the
horizon; a dainty little maiden, in a stiff white skirt and golden hair,
leans against him and tiptoes up to the object-glass, shutting first one
eye and then the other, and making nothing out of it all. “Why, ov co'se
you can't see nuffln, honey,” said Uncle Ned, taking a peep, “wid the
'scope p'inted up in the sky.”

In order to pass from Cape May to Atlantic City one takes a long circuit
by rail through the Jersey sands. Jersey is a very prolific State, but
the railway traveler by this route is excellently prepared for Atlantic
City, for he sees little but sand, stunted pines, scrub oaks, small
frame houses, sometimes trying to hide in the clumps of scrub oaks,
and the villages are just collections of the same small frame houses
hopelessly decorated with scroll-work and obtrusively painted, standing
in lines on sandy streets, adorned with lean shade-trees. The handsome
Jersey people were not traveling that day--the two friends had a theory
about the relation of a sandy soil to female beauty--and when the
artist got out his pencil to catch the types of the country, he was
well rewarded. There were the fat old women in holiday market costumes,
strong-featured, positive, who shook their heads at each other and
nodded violently and incessantly, and all talked at once; the old men in
rusty suits, thin, with a deprecatory manner, as if they had heard that
clatter for fifty years, and perky, sharp-faced girls in vegetable hats,
all long-nosed and thin-lipped. And though the day was cool, mosquitoes
had the bad taste to invade the train. At the junction, a small
collection of wooden shanties, where the travelers waited an hour, they
heard much of the glories of Atlantic City from the postmistress, who
was waiting for an excursion some time to go there (the passion for
excursions seems to be a growing one), and they made the acquaintance of
a cow tied in the room next the ticket-office, probably also waiting for
a passage to the city by the sea.

And a city it is. If many houses, endless avenues, sand, paint, make a
city, the artist confessed that this was one. Everything is on a large
scale. It covers a large territory, the streets run at right angles, the
avenues to the ocean take the names of the states. If the town had been
made to order and sawed out by one man, it could not be more beautifully
regular and more satisfactorily monotonous. There is nothing about it to
give the most commonplace mind in the world a throb of disturbance. The
hotels, the cheap shops, the cottages, are all of wood, and, with three
or four exceptions in the thousands, they are all practically alike, all
ornamented with scroll-work, as if cut out by the jig-saw, all vividly
painted, all appealing to a primitive taste just awakening to the
appreciation of the gaudy chromo and the illuminated and consoling
household motto. Most of the hotels are in the town, at considerable
distance from the ocean, and the majestic old sea, which can be
monotonous but never vulgar, is barricaded from the town by five or six
miles of stark-naked plank walk, rows on rows of bath closets, leagues
of flimsy carpentry-work, in the way of cheap-John shops, tin-type
booths, peep-shows, go-rounds, shooting-galleries, pop-beer and cigar
shops, restaurants, barber shops, photograph galleries, summer theatres.
Sometimes the plank walk runs for a mile or two, on its piles, between
rows of these shops and booths, and again it drops off down by the
waves. Here and there is a gayly-painted wooden canopy by the shore,
with chairs where idlers can sit and watch the frolicking in the water,
or a space railed off, where the select of the hotels lie or lounge
in the sand under red umbrellas. The calculating mind wonders how many
million feet of lumber there are in this unpicturesque barricade, and
what gigantic forests have fallen to make this timber front to the sea.
But there is one thing man cannot do. He has made this show to suit
himself, he has pushed out several iron piers into the sea, and erected,
of course, a skating rink on the end of one of them. But the sea
itself, untamed, restless, shining, dancing, raging, rolls in from the
southward, tossing the white sails on its vast expanse, green, blue,
leaden, white-capped, many-colored, never two minutes the same, sounding
with its eternal voice I knew not what rebuke to man.

When Mr. King wrote his and his friend's name in the book at the Mansion
House, he had the curiosity to turn over the leaves, and it was not with
much surprise that he read there the names of A. J. Benson, wife, and
daughter, Cyrusville, Ohio.

“Oh, I see!” said the artist; “you came down here to see Mr. Benson!”

That gentleman was presently discovered tilted back in a chair on
the piazza, gazing vacantly into the vacant street with that air of
endurance that fathers of families put on at such resorts. But he
brightened up when Mr. King made himself known.

“I'm right glad to see you, sir. And my wife and daughter will be. I
was saying to my wife yesterday that I couldn't stand this sort of thing
much longer.”

“You don't find it lively?”

“Well, the livelier it is the less I shall like it, I reckon. The town
is well enough. It's one of the smartest places on the coast. I should
like to have owned the ground and sold out and retired. This sand is all
gold. They say they sell the lots by the bushel and count every sand.
You can see what it is, boards and paint and sand. Fine houses, too;
miles of them.”

“And what do you do?”

“Oh, they say there's plenty to do. You can ride around in the sand; you
can wade in it if you want to, and go down to the beach and walk up and
down the plank walk--walk up and down--walk up and down. They like it.
You can't bathe yet without getting pneumonia. They have gone there now.
Irene goes because she says she can't stand the gayety of the parlor.”

From the parlor came the sound of music. A young girl who had the air
of not being afraid of a public parlor was drumming out waltzes on the
piano, more for the entertainment of herself than of the half-dozen
ladies who yawned over their worsted-work. As she brought her piece to
an end with a bang, a pretty, sentimental miss with a novel in her hand,
who may not have seen Mr. King looking in at the door, ran over to the
player and gave her a hug. “That's beautiful! that's perfectly lovely,
Mamie!”--“This,” said the player, taking up another sheet, “has not been
played much in New York.” Probably not, in that style, thought Mr. King,
as the girl clattered through it.

There was no lack of people on the promenade, tramping the boards, or
hanging about the booths where the carpenters and painters were at work,
and the shop men and women were unpacking the corals and the sea-shells,
and the cheap jewelry, and the Swiss wood-carving, the toys, the tinsel
brooches, and agate ornaments, and arranging the soda fountains, and
putting up the shelves for the permanent pie. The sort of preparation
going on indicated the kind of crowd expected. If everything had a cheap
and vulgar look, our wandering critics remembered that it is never fair
to look behind the scenes of a show, and that things would wear a braver
appearance by and by. And if the women on the promenade were homely and
ill-dressed, even the bonnes in unpicturesque costumes, and all the men
were slouchy and stolid, how could any one tell what an effect of gayety
and enjoyment there might be when there were thousands of such people,
and the sea was full of bathers, and the flags were flying, and the
bands were tooting, and all the theatres were opened, and acrobats and
spangled women and painted red-men offered those attractions which, like
government, are for the good of the greatest number? What will you
have? Shall vulgarity be left just vulgar, and have no apotheosis and
glorification? This is very fine of its kind, and a resort for the
million. The million come here to enjoy themselves. Would you have an
art-gallery here, and high-priced New York and Paris shops lining the
way?

“Look at the town,” exclaimed the artist, “and see what money can do,
and satisfy the average taste without the least aid from art. It's just
wonderful. I've tramped round the place, and, taking out a cottage or
two, there isn't a picturesque or pleasing view anywhere. I tell you
people know what they want, and enjoy it when they get it.”

“You needn't get excited about it,” said Mr. King. “Nobody said it
wasn't commonplace, and glaringly vulgar if you like, and if you like
to consider it representative of a certain stage in national culture, I
hope it is not necessary to remind you that the United States can beat
any other people in any direction they choose to expand themselves.
You'll own it when you've seen watering-places enough.”

After this defense of the place, Mr. King owned it might be difficult
for Mr. Forbes to find anything picturesque to sketch. What figures, to
be sure! As if people were obliged to be shapely or picturesque for the
sake of a wandering artist! “I could do a tree,” growled Mr. Forbes, “or
a pile of boards; but these shanties!”

When they were well away from the booths and bath-houses, Mr. King saw
in the distance two ladies. There was no mistaking one of them--the easy
carriage, the grace of movement. No such figure had been afield all day.
The artist was quick to see that. Presently they came up with them, and
found them seated on a bench, looking off upon Brigantine Island, a low
sand dune with some houses and a few trees against the sky, the most
pleasing object in view.

Mrs. Benson did not conceal the pleasure she felt in seeing Mr. King
again, and was delighted to know his friend; and, to say the truth, Miss
Irene gave him a very cordial greeting.

“I'm 'most tired to death,” said Mrs. Benson, when they were all seated.
“But this air does me good. Don't you like Atlantic City?”

“I like it better than I did at first.” If the remark was intended for
Irene, she paid no attention to it, being absorbed in explaining to Mr.
Forbes why she preferred the deserted end of the promenade.

“It's a place that grows on you. I guess it's grown the wrong way on
Irene and father; but I like the air--after the South. They say we ought
to see it in August, when all Philadelphia is here.”

“I should think it might be very lively.”

“Yes; but the promiscuous bathing. I don't think I should like that. We
are not brought up to that sort of thing in Ohio.”

“No? Ohio is more like France, I suppose?”

“Like France!” exclaimed the old lady, looking at him in
amazement--“like France! Why, France is the wickedest place in the
world.”

“No doubt it is, Mrs. Benson. But at the sea resorts the sexes bathe
separately.”

“Well, now! I suppose they have to there.”

“Yes; the older nations grow, the more self-conscious they become.”

“I don't believe, for all you say, Mr. King, the French have any more
conscience than we have.”

“Nor do I, Mrs. Benson. I was only trying to say that they pay more
attention to appearances.”

“Well, I was brought up to think it's one thing to appear, and another
thing to be,” said Mrs. Benson, as dismissing the subject. “So your
friend's an artist? Does he paint? Does he take portraits? There was
an artist at Cyrusville last winter who painted portraits, but Irene
wouldn't let him do hers. I'm glad we've met Mr. Forbes. I've always
wanted to have--”

“Oh, mother,” exclaimed Irene, who always appeared to keep one ear for
her mother's conversation, “I was just saying to Mr. Forbes that he
ought to see the art exhibitions down at the other end of the promenade,
and the pictures of the people who come here in August. Are you rested?”

The party moved along, and Mr. King, by a movement that seemed to him
more natural than it did to Mr. Forbes, walked with Irene, and the two
fell to talking about the last spring's trip in the South.

“Yes, we enjoyed the exhibition, but I am not sure but I should have
enjoyed New Orleans more without the exhibition. That took so much time.
There is nothing so wearisome as an exhibition. But New Orleans was
charming. I don't know why, for it's the flattest, dirtiest, dampest
city in the world; but it is charming. Perhaps it's the people, or the
Frenchiness of it, or the tumble-down, picturesque old creole quarter,
or the roses; I didn't suppose there were in the world so many roses;
the town was just wreathed and smothered with them. And you did not see
it?”

“No; I have been to exhibitions, and I thought I should prefer to take
New Orleans by itself some other time. You found the people hospitable?”

“Well, they were not simply hospitable; they were that, to be sure, for
father had letters to some of the leading men; but it was the general
air of friendliness and good-nature everywhere, of agreeableness--it
went along with the roses and the easy-going life. You didn't feel
all the time on a strain. I don't suppose they are any better than
our people, and I've no doubt I should miss a good deal there after
a while--a certain tonic and purpose in life. But, do you know, it is
pleasant sometimes to be with people who haven't so many corners as our
people have. But you went south from Fortress Monroe?”

“Yes; I went to Florida.”

“Oh, that must be a delightful country!”

“Yes, it's a very delightful land, or will be when it is finished. It
needs advertising now. It needs somebody to call attention to it. The
modest Northerners who have got hold of it, and staked it all out into
city lots, seem to want to keep it all to themselves.”

“How do you mean 'finished'?”

“Why, the State is big enough, and a considerable portion of it has a
good foundation. What it wants is building up. There's plenty of water
and sand, and palmetto roots and palmetto trees, and swamps, and a
perfectly wonderful vegetation of vines and plants and flowers. What it
needs is land--at least what the Yankees call land. But it is coming on.
A good deal of the State below Jacksonville is already ten to fifteen
feet above the ocean.”

“But it's such a place for invalids!”

“Yes, it is a place for invalids. There are two kinds of people
there--invalids and speculators. Thousands of people in the bleak North,
and especially in the Northwest, cannot live in the winter anywhere else
than in Florida. It's a great blessing to this country to have such a
sanitarium. As I said, all it needs is building up, and then it wouldn't
be so monotonous and malarious.”

“But I had such a different idea of it!”

“Well, your idea is probably right. You cannot do justice to a place by
describing it literally. Most people are fascinated by Florida: the fact
is that anything is preferable to our Northern climate from February to
May.”

“And you didn't buy an orange plantation, or a town?”

“No; I was discouraged. Almost any one can have a town who will take a
boat and go off somewhere with a surveyor, and make a map.”

The truth is--the present writer had it from Major Blifill, who runs a
little steamboat upon one of the inland creeks where the alligator is
still numerous enough to be an entertainment--that Mr. King was no doubt
malarious himself when he sailed over Florida. Blifill says he offended
a whole boatfull one day when they were sailing up the St. John's.
Probably he was tired of water, and swamp and water, and scraggy
trees and water. The captain was on the bow, expatiating to a crowd of
listeners on the fertility of the soil and the salubrity of the climate.
He had himself bought a piece of ground away up there somewhere for two
hundred dollars, cleared it up, and put in orange-trees, and thousands
wouldn't buy it now. And Mr. King, who listened attentively, finally
joined in with the questioners, and said, “Captain, what is the average
price of land down in this part of Florida by the--gallon?”

They had come down to the booths, and Mrs. Benson was showing the artist
the shells, piles of conchs, and other outlandish sea-fabrications
in which it is said the roar of the ocean can be heard when they are
hundreds of miles away from the sea. It was a pretty thought, Mr.
Forbes said, and he admired the open shells that were painted on the
inside--painted in bright blues and greens, with dabs of white sails and
a lighthouse, or a boat with a bare-armed, resolute young woman in it,
sending her bark spinning over waves mountain-high.

“Yes,” said the artist, “what cheerfulness those works of art will give
to the little parlors up in the country, when they are set up with other
shells on the what-not in the corner! These shells always used to remind
me of missionaries and the cause of the heathen; but when I see them now
I shall think of Atlantic City.”

“But the representative things here,” interrupted Irene, “are the
photographs, the tintypes. To see them is just as good as staying here
to see the people when they come.”

“Yes,” responded Mr. King, “I think art cannot go much further in this
direction.”

If there were not miles of these show-cases of tintypes, there were at
least acres of them. Occasionally an instantaneous photograph gave a
lively picture of the beach, when the water was full of bathers-men,
women, children, in the most extraordinary costumes for revealing or
deforming the human figure--all tossing about in the surf. But most of
the pictures were taken on dry land, of single persons, couples, and
groups in their bathing suits. Perhaps such an extraordinary collection
of humanity cannot be seen elsewhere in the world, such a uniformity
of one depressing type reduced to its last analysis by the sea-toilet.
Sometimes it was a young man and a maiden, handed down to posterity in
dresses that would have caused their arrest in the street, sentimentally
reclining on a canvas rock. Again it was a maiden with flowing hair,
raised hands clasped, eyes upturned, on top of a crag, at the base
of which the waves were breaking in foam. Or it was the same stalwart
maiden, or another as good, in a boat which stood on end, pulling
through the surf with one oar, and dragging a drowning man (in a bathing
suit also) into the boat with her free hand. The legend was, “Saved.”
 There never was such heroism exhibited by young women before, with such
raiment, as was shown in these rare works of art.

As they walked back to the hotel through a sandy avenue lined with
jig-saw architecture, Miss Benson pointed out to them some things that
she said had touched her a good deal. In the patches of sand before each
house there was generally an oblong little mound set about with a rim of
stones, or, when something more artistic could be afforded, with shells.
On each of these little graves was a flower, a sickly geranium, or a
humble marigold, or some other floral token of affection.

Mr. Forbes said he never was at a watering-place before where they
buried the summer boarders in the front yard. Mrs. Benson didn't like
joking on such subjects, and Mr. King turned the direction of the
conversation by remarking that these seeming trifles were really of much
account in these days, and he took from his pocket a copy of the city
newspaper, 'The Summer Sea-Song,' and read some of the leading items:
“S., our eye is on you.” “The Slopers have come to their cottage on
Q Street, and come to stay.” “Mr. E. P. Borum has painted his front
steps.” “Mr. Diffendorfer's marigold is on the blow.” And so on, and so
on. This was probably the marigold mentioned that they were looking at.

The most vivid impression, however, made upon the visitor in this walk
was that of paint. It seemed unreal that there could be so much paint in
the world and so many swearing colors. But it ceased to be a dream,
and they were taken back into the hard, practical world, when, as they
turned the corner, Irene pointed out her favorite sign:

          Silas Lapham, mineral paint.
             Branch Office.

The artist said, a couple of days after this morning, that he had enough
of it. “Of course,” he added, “it is a great pleasure to me to sit and
talk with Mrs. Benson, while you and that pretty girl walk up and down
the piazza all the evening; but I'm easily satisfied, and two evenings
did for me.”

So that, much as Mr. King was charmed with Atlantic City, and much as he
regretted not awaiting the arrival of the originals of the tintypes,
he gave in to the restlessness of the artist for other scenes; but not
before he had impressed Mrs. Benson with a notion of the delights of
Newport in July.




III. THE CATSKILLS

The view of the Catskills from a certain hospitable mansion on the east
side of the Hudson is better than any mew from those delectable hills.
The artist said so one morning late in June, and Mr. King agreed with
him, as a matter of fact, but would have no philosophizing about it, as
that anticipation is always better than realization; and when Mr.
Forbes went on to say that climbing a mountain was a good deal like
marriage--the world was likely to look a little flat once that cerulean
height was attained--Mr. King only remarked that that was a low view to
take of the subject, but he would confess that it was unreasonable to
expect that any rational object could fulfill, or even approach, the
promise held out by such an exquisite prospect as that before them.

The friends were standing where the Catskill hills lay before them
in echelon towards the river, the ridges lapping over each other and
receding in the distance, a gradation of lines most artistically drawn,
still further refined by shades of violet, which always have the effect
upon the contemplative mind of either religious exaltation or the
kindling of a sentiment which is in the young akin to the emotion of
love. While the artist was making some memoranda of these outlines, and
Mr. King was drawing I know not what auguries of hope from these purple
heights, a young lady seated upon a rock near by--a young lady just
stepping over the border-line of womanhood--had her eyes also fixed upon
those dreamy distances, with that look we all know so well, betraying
that shy expectancy of life which is unconfessed, that tendency to
maidenly reverie which it were cruel to interpret literally. At the
moment she is more interesting than the Catskills--the brown hair, the
large eyes unconscious of anything but the most natural emotion, the
shapely waist just beginning to respond to the call of the future--it
is a pity that we shall never see her again, and that she has nothing
whatever to do with our journey. She also will have her romance;
fate will meet her in the way some day, and set her pure heart wildly
beating, and she will know what those purple distances mean. Happiness,
tragedy, anguish--who can tell what is in store for her? I cannot but
feel profound sadness at meeting her in this casual way and never seeing
her again. Who says that the world is not full of romance and pathos and
regret as we go our daily way in it? You meet her at a railway station;
there is the flutter of a veil, the gleam of a scarlet bird, the lifting
of a pair of eyes--she is gone; she is entering a drawing-room, and
stops a moment and turns away; she is looking from a window as you
pass--it is only a glance out of eternity; she stands for a second upon
a rock looking seaward; she passes you at the church door--is that all?
It is discovered that instantaneous photographs can be taken. They are
taken all the time; some of them are never developed, but I suppose
these impressions are all there on the sensitive plate, and that the
plate is permanently affected by the impressions. The pity of it is that
the world is so full of these undeveloped knowledges of people worth
knowing and friendships worth making.

The comfort of leaving same things to the imagination was impressed upon
our travelers when they left the narrow-gauge railway at the mountain
station, and identified themselves with other tourists by entering a
two-horse wagon to be dragged wearily up the hill through the woods. The
ascent would be more tolerable if any vistas were cut in the forest to
give views by the way; as it was, the monotony of the pull upward was
only relieved by the society of the passengers. There were two bright
little girls off for a holiday with their Western uncle, a big,
good-natured man with a diamond breast-pin, and his voluble son, a lad
about the age of his little cousins, whom he constantly pestered by
his rude and dominating behavior. The boy was a product which it is the
despair of all Europe to produce, and our travelers had great delight in
him as an epitome of American “smartness.” He led all the conversation,
had confident opinions about everything, easily put down his deferential
papa, and pleased the other passengers by his self-sufficient,
know-it-all air. To a boy who had traveled in California and seen the
Alps it was not to be expected that this humble mountain could afford
much entertainment, and he did not attempt to conceal his contempt for
it. When the stage reached the Rip Van Winkle House, half-way, the shy
schoolgirls were for indulging a little sentiment over the old legend,
but the boy, who concealed his ignorance of the Irving romance until his
cousins had prattled the outlines of it, was not to be taken in by any
such chaff, and though he was a little staggered by Rip's own cottage,
and by the sight of the cave above it which is labeled as the very
spot where the vagabond took his long nap, he attempted to bully
the attendant and drink-mixer in the hut, and openly flaunted his
incredulity until the bar-tender showed him a long bunch of Rip's hair,
which hung like a scalp on a nail, and the rusty barrel and stock of the
musket. The cabin is, indeed, full of old guns, pistols, locks of hair,
buttons, cartridge-boxes, bullets, knives, and other undoubted relics
of Rip and the Revolution. This cabin, with its facilities for slaking
thirst on a hot day, which Rip would have appreciated, over a hundred
years old according to information to be obtained on the spot, is
really of unknown antiquity, the old boards and timber of which it is
constructed having been brought down from the Mountain House some forty
years ago.

The old Mountain House, standing upon its ledge of rock, from which
one looks down upon a map of a considerable portion of New York and New
England, with the lake in the rear, and heights on each side that offer
charming walks to those who have in contemplation views of nature or
of matrimony, has somewhat lost its importance since the vast Catskill
region has come to the knowledge of the world. A generation ago it
was the centre of attraction, and it was understood that going to the
Catskills was going there. Generations of searchers after immortality
have chiseled their names in the rock platform, and one who sits there
now falls to musing on the vanity of human nature and the transitoriness
of fashion. Now New York has found that it has very convenient to it
a great mountain pleasure-ground; railways and excellent roads have
pierced it, the varied beauties of rocks, ravines, and charming retreats
are revealed, excellent hotels capable of entertaining a thousand guests
are planted on heights and slopes commanding mountain as well as lowland
prospects, great and small boarding-houses cluster in the high valleys
and on the hillsides, and cottages more thickly every year dot the
wild region. Year by year these accommodations will increase, new
roads around the gorges will open more enchanting views, and it is not
improbable that the species of American known as the “summer boarder”
 will have his highest development and apotheosis in these mountains.

Nevertheless Mr. King was not uninterested in renewing his memories
of the old house. He could recall without difficulty, and also without
emotion now, a scene on this upper veranda and a moonlight night long
ago, and he had no doubt he could find her name carved on a beech-tree
in the wood near by; but it was useless to look for it, for her name had
been changed. The place was, indeed, full of memories, but all chastened
and subdued by the indoor atmosphere, which impressed him as that of
a faded Sunday. He was very careful not to disturb the decorum by any
frivolity of demeanor, and he cautioned the artist on this point; but
Mr. Forbes declared that the dining-room fare kept his spirits at a
proper level. There was an old-time satisfaction in wandering into the
parlor, and resting on the haircloth sofa, and looking at the hair-cloth
chairs, and pensively imagining a meeting there, with songs out of
the Moody and Sankey book; and he did not tire of dropping into the
reposeful reception-room, where he never by any chance met anybody,
and sitting with the melodeon and big Bible Society edition of the
Scriptures, and a chance copy of the Christian at Play. These amusements
were varied by sympathetic listening to the complaints of the proprietor
about the vandalism of visitors who wrote with diamonds on the
window-panes, so that the glass had to be renewed, or scratched their
names on the pillars of the piazza, so that the whole front had to be
repainted, or broke off the azalea blossoms, or in other ways desecrated
the premises. In order to fit himself for a sojourn here, Mr. King tried
to commit to memory a placard that was neatly framed and hung on the
veranda, wherein it was stated that the owner cheerfully submits to all
necessary use of the premises, “but will not permit any unnecessary use,
or the exercise of a depraved taste or vandalism.” There were not as yet
many guests, and those who were there seemed to have conned this placard
to their improvement, for there was not much exercise of any sort of
taste. Of course there were two or three brides, and there was the
inevitable English nice middle-class tourist with his wife, the latter
ram-roddy and uncompromising, in big boots and botanical, who, in
response to a gentleman who was giving her information about travel,
constantly ejaculated, in broad English, “Yas, yas; ow, ow, ow, really!”

And there was the young bride from Kankazoo, who frightened Mr. King
back into his chamber one morning when he opened his door and beheld the
vision of a woman going towards the breakfast-room in what he took to be
a robe de nuit, but which turned out to be one of the “Mother-Hubbards”
 which have had a certain celebrity as street dresses in some parts of
the West. But these gayeties palled after a time, and one afternoon
our travelers, with their vandalism all subdued, walked a mile over the
rocks to the Kaaterskill House, and took up their abode there to watch
the opening of the season. Naturally they expected some difficulty in
transferring their two trunks round by the road, where there had been
nothing but a wilderness forty years ago; but their change of base was
facilitated by the obliging hotelkeeper in the most friendly manner, and
when he insisted on charging only four dollars for moving the trunks,
the two friends said that, considering the wear and tear of the mountain
involved, they did not see how he could afford to do it for such a sum,
and they went away, as they said, well pleased.

It happened to be at the Kaaterskill House--it might have been at
the Grand, or the Overlook--that the young gentlemen in search of
information saw the Catskill season get under way. The phase of American
life is much the same at all these great caravansaries. It seems to the
writer, who has the greatest admiration for the military genius that can
feed and fight an army in the field, that not enough account is made
of the greater genius that can organize and carry on a great American
hotel, with a thousand or fifteen hundred guests, in a short, sharp,
and decisive campaign of two months, at the end of which the substantial
fruits of victory are in the hands of the landlord, and the guests are
allowed to depart with only their personal baggage and side-arms, but so
well pleased that they are inclined to renew the contest next year. This
is a triumph of mind over mind. It is not merely the organization and
the management of the army under the immediate command of the landlord,
the accumulation and distribution of supplies upon this mountain-top, in
the uncertainty whether the garrison on a given day will be one hundred
or one thousand, not merely the lodging, rationing and amusing of this
shifting host, but the satisfying of as many whims and prejudices
as there are people who leave home on purpose to grumble and enjoy
themselves in the exercise of a criticism they dare not indulge in their
own houses. Our friends had an opportunity of seeing the machinery set
in motion in one of these great establishments. Here was a vast balloon
structure, founded on a rock, but built in the air, and anchored with
cables, with towers and a high pillared veranda, capable, with its
annex, of lodging fifteen hundred people. The army of waiters and
chamber-maids, of bellboys, and scullions and porters and laundry-folk,
was arriving; the stalwart scrubbers were at work, the store-rooms were
filled, the big kitchen shone with its burnished coppers, and an array
of white-capped and aproned cooks stood in line under their chef; the
telegraph operator was waiting at her desk, the drug clerk was arranging
his bottles, the newspaper stand was furnished, the post-office was open
for letters. It needed but the arrival of a guest to set the machinery
in motion. And as soon as the guest came the band would be there to
launch him into the maddening gayety of the season. It would welcome his
arrival in triumphant strains; it would pursue him at dinner, and drown
his conversation; it will fill his siesta with martial dreams, and it
would seize his legs in the evening, and entreat him to caper in the
parlor. Everything was ready. And this was what happened. It was the
evening of the opening day. The train wagons might be expected
any moment. The electric lights were blazing. All the clerks stood
expectant, the porters were by the door, the trim, uniformed bell-boys
were all in waiting line, the register clerk stood fingering the leaves
of the register with a gracious air. A noise is heard outside, the big
door opens, there is a rush forward, and four people flock in a man in a
linen duster, a stout woman, a lad of ten, a smartly dressed young lady,
and a dog. Movement, welcome, ringing of bells, tramping of feet--the
whole machinery has started. It was adjusted to crack an egg-shell or
smash an iron-bound trunk. The few drops presaged a shower. The next day
there were a hundred on the register; the day after, two hundred; and
the day following, an excursion.

With increasing arrivals opportunity was offered for the study of
character. Away from his occupation, away from the cares of the
household and the demands of society, what is the self-sustaining
capacity of the ordinary American man or woman? It was interesting to
note the enthusiasm of the first arrival, the delight in the view--Round
Top, the deep gorges, the charming vista of the lowlands, a world and
wilderness of beauty; the inspiration of the air, the alertness to
explore in all directions, to see the lake, the falls, the mountain
paths. But is a mountain sooner found out than a valley, or is there a
want of internal resources, away from business, that the men presently
become rather listless, take perfunctory walks for exercise, and are so
eager for meal-time and mail-time? Why do they depend so much upon
the newspapers, when they all despise the newspapers? Mr. King used
to listen of an evening to the commonplace talk about the fire, all of
which was a dilution of what they had just got out of the newspapers,
but what a lively assent there was to a glib talker who wound up his
remarks with a denunciation of the newspapers! The man was no doubt
quite right, but did he reflect on the public loss of his valuable
conversation the next night if his newspaper should chance to fail? And
the women, after their first feeling of relief, did they fall presently
into petty gossip, complaints about the table, criticisms of each
other's dress, small discontents with nearly everything? Not all of
them.

An excursion is always resented by the regular occupants of a summer
resort, who look down upon the excursionists, while they condescend
to be amused by them. It is perhaps only the common attitude of the
wholesale to the retail dealer, although it is undeniable that a person
seems temporarily to change his nature when he becomes part of an
excursion; whether it is from the elation at the purchase of a day
of gayety below the market price, or the escape from personal
responsibility under a conductor, or the love of being conspicuous as a
part of a sort of organization, the excursionist is not on his ordinary
behavior.

An excursion numbering several hundreds, gathered along the river
towns by the benevolent enterprise of railway officials, came up to the
mountain one day. The officials seemed to have run a drag-net through
factories, workshops, Sunday-schools, and churches, and scooped in
the weary workers at homes and in shops unaccustomed to a holiday. Our
friends formed a part of a group on the hotel piazza who watched the
straggling arrival of this band of pleasure. For by this time our
two friends had found a circle of acquaintances, with the facility of
watering-place life, which in its way represented certain phases of
American life as well as the excursion. A great many writers have sought
to classify and label and put into a paragraph a description of the
American girl. She is not to be disposed of by any such easy process.
Undoubtedly she has some common marks of nationality that distinguish
her from the English girl, but in variety she is practically infinite,
and likely to assume almost any form, and the characteristics of a dozen
nationalities. No one type represents her. What, indeed, would one say
of this little group on the hotel piazza, making its comments upon
the excursionists? Here is a young lady of, say, twenty-three years,
inclining already to stoutness, domestic, placid, with matron written on
every line of her unselfish face, capable of being, if necessity were, a
notable housekeeper, learned in preserves and jellies and cordials, sure
to have her closets in order, and a place for every remnant, piece of
twine, and all odds and ends. Not a person to read Browning with, but to
call on if one needed a nurse, or a good dinner, or a charitable deed.
Beside her, in an invalid's chair, a young girl, scarcely eighteen, of
quite another sort, pale, slight, delicate, with a lovely face and large
sentimental eyes, all nerves, the product, perhaps, of a fashionable
school, who in one season in New York, her first, had utterly broken
down into what is called nervous prostration. In striking contrast was
Miss Nettie Sumner, perhaps twenty-one, who corresponded more nearly to
what the internationalists call the American type; had evidently taken
school education as a duck takes water, and danced along in society into
apparent robustness of person and knowledge of the world. A handsome
girl, she would be a comely woman, good-natured, quick at repartee,
confining her knowledge of books to popular novels, too natural
and frank to be a flirt, an adept in all the nice slang current in
fashionable life, caught up from collegians and brokers, accustomed to
meet men in public life, in hotels, a very “jolly” companion, with a
fund of good sense that made her entirely capable of managing her own
affairs. Mr. King was at the moment conversing with still another young
lady, who had more years than the last-named-short, compact figure,
round girlish face, good, strong, dark eyes, modest in bearing,
self-possessed in manner, sensible-who made ready and incisive comments,
and seemed to have thought deeply on a large range of topics, but had
a sort of downright practicality and cool independence, with all
her femininity of bearing, that rather, puzzled her interlocutor. It
occurred to Mr. King to guess that Miss Selina Morton might be from
Boston, which she was not, but it was with a sort of shock of surprise
that he learned later that this young girl, moving about in society in
the innocent panoply of girlhood, was a young doctor, who had no doubt
looked through and through him with her keen eyes, studied him in the
light of heredity, constitutional tendencies, habits, and environment,
as a possible patient. It almost made him ill to think of it. Here were
types enough for one morning; but there was still another.

The artist had seated himself on a rock a little distance from the
house, and was trying to catch some of the figures as they appeared up
the path, and a young girl was looking over his shoulder with an amused
face, just as he was getting an elderly man in a long flowing duster,
straggling gray hair, hat on the back of his head, large iron-rimmed
spectacles, with a baggy umbrella, who stopped breathless at the summit,
with a wild glare of astonishment at the view. This young girl, whom the
careless observer might pass without a second glance, was discovered on
better acquaintance to express in her face and the lines of her figure
some subtle intellectual quality not easily interpreted. Marion Lamont,
let us say at once, was of Southern origin, born in London during the
temporary residence of her parents there, and while very young deprived
by death of her natural protectors. She had a small, low voice, fine
hair of a light color, which contrasted with dark eyes, waved back from
her forehead, delicate, sensitive features--indeed, her face, especially
in conversation with any one, almost always had a wistful, appealing
look; in figure short and very slight, lithe and graceful, full of
unconscious artistic poses, fearless and sure-footed as a gazelle in
climbing about the rocks, leaping from stone to stone, and even making
her way up a tree that had convenient branches, if the whim took her,
using her hands and arms like a gymnast, and performing whatever feat
of. daring or dexterity as if the exquisitely molded form was all
instinct with her indomitable will, and obeyed it, and always with an
air of refinement and spirited breeding. A child of nature in seeming,
but yet a woman who was not to be fathomed by a chance acquaintance.

The old man with the spectacles was presently overtaken by a stout,
elderly woman, who landed in the exhausted condition of a porpoise that
has come ashore, and stood regardless of everything but her own weight,
while member after member of the party straggled up. No sooner did
this group espy the artist than they moved in his direction. “There's a
painter.” “I wonder what he's painting.” “Maybe he'll paint us.” “Let's
see what he's doing.” “I should like to see a man paint.” And the crowd
flowed on, getting in front of the sketcher, and creeping round behind
him for a peep over his shoulder. The artist closed his sketch-book
and retreated, and the stout woman, balked of that prey, turned round
a moment to the view, exclaimed, “Ain't that elegant!” and then waddled
off to the hotel.

“I wonder,” Mr. King was saying, “if these excursionists are
representative of general American life?”

“If they are,” said the artist, “there's little here for my purpose. A
good many of them seem to be foreigners, or of foreign origin. Just as
soon as these people get naturalized, they lose the picturesqueness they
had abroad.”

“Did it never occur to your highness that they may prefer to be
comfortable rather than picturesque, and that they may be ignorant that
they were born for artistic purposes?” It was the low voice of Miss
Lamont, and that demure person looked up as if she really wanted
information.

“I doubt about the comfort,” the artist began to reply.

“And so do I,” said Miss Sumner. “What on earth do you suppose made
those girls come up here in white dresses, blowing about in the wind,
and already drabbled? Did you ever see such a lot of cheap millinery? I
haven't seen a woman yet with the least bit of style.”

“Poor things, they look as if they'd never had a holiday before in their
lives, and didn't exactly know what to do with it,” apologized Miss
Lamont.

“Don't you believe it. They've been to more church and Sunday-school
picnics than you ever attended. Look over there!”

It was a group seated about their lunch-baskets. A young gentleman, the
comedian of the patty, the life of the church sociable, had put on the
hat of one of the girls, and was making himself so irresistibly funny
in it that all the girls tittered, and their mothers looked a little
shamefaced and pleased.

“Well,” said Mr. King, “that's the only festive sign I've seen. It's
more like a funeral procession than a pleasure excursion. What impresses
me is the extreme gravity of these people--no fun, no hilarity, no
letting themselves loose for a good time, as they say. Probably they
like it, but they seem to have no capacity for enjoying themselves; they
have no vivacity, no gayety--what a contrast to a party in France or
Germany off for a day's pleasure--no devices, no resources.”

“Yes, it's all sad, respectable, confoundedly uninteresting. What does
the doctor say?” asked the artist.

“I know what the doctor will say,” put in Miss Summer, “but I tell you
that what this crowd needs is missionary dressmakers and tailors. If
I were dressed that way I should feel and act just as they do. Well,
Selina?”

“It's pretty melancholy. The trouble is constant grinding work and bad
food. I've been studying these people. The women are all--”

“Ugly,” suggested the artist.

“Well, ill-favored, scrimped; that means ill-nurtured simply. Out of the
three hundred there are not half a dozen well-conditioned, filled out
physically in comfortable proportions. Most of the women look as if they
had been dragged out with indoor work and little intellectual life, but
the real cause of physical degeneration is bad cooking. If they lived
more out-of-doors, as women do in Italy, the food might not make so much
difference, but in our climate it is the prime thing. This poor physical
state accounts for the want of gayety and the lack of beauty. The men,
on the whole, are better than the women, that is, the young men. I don't
know as these people are overworked, as the world goes. I dare say,
Nettie, there's not a girl in this crowd who could dance with you
through a season. They need to be better fed, and to have more elevating
recreations-something to educate their taste.”

“I've been educating the taste of one excursionist this morning, a
good-faced workman, who was prying about everywhere with a curious air,
and said he never'd been on an excursion before. He came up to me in the
office, deferentially asked me if I would go into the parlor with him,
and, pointing to something hanging on the wall, asked, 'What is that?'
'That,' I said, 'is a view from Sunset Rock, and a very good one.'
'Yes,' he continued, walking close up to it, 'but what is it?' 'Why,
it's a painting.' 'Oh, it isn't the place?' 'No, no; it's a painting in
oil, done with a brush on a piece of canvas--don't you see--, made to
look like the view over there from the rock, colors and all.' 'Yes, I
thought, perhaps--you can see a good ways in it. It's pooty.' 'There's
another one,' I said--'falls, water coming down, and trees.' 'Well, I
declare, so it is! And that's jest a make-believe? I s'pose I can go
round and look?' 'Certainly.' And the old fellow tiptoed round the
parlor, peering at all the pictures in a confused state of mind, and
with a guilty look of enjoyment. It seems incredible that a person
should attain his age with such freshness of mind. But I think he is the
only one of the party who even looked at the paintings.”

“I think it's just pathetic,” said Miss Lamont. “Don't you, Mr. Forbes?”

“No; I think it's encouraging. It's a sign of an art appreciation in
this country. That man will know a painting next time he sees one, and
then he won't rest till he has bought a chromo, and so he will go on.”

“And if he lives long enough, he will buy one of Mr. Forbes's
paintings.”

“But not the one that Miss Lamont is going to sit for.”

When Mr. King met the party at the dinner-table, the places of Miss
Lamont and Mr. Forbes were still vacant. The other ladies looked
significantly at them, and one of them said, “Don't you think there's
something in it? don't you think they are interested in each other?” Mr.
King put down his soup-spoon, too much amazed to reply. Do women never
think of anything but mating people who happen to be thrown together?
Here were this young lady and his friend, who had known each other for
three days, perhaps, in the most casual way, and her friends had her
already as good as married to him and off on a wedding journey. All that
Mr. King said, after apparent deep cogitation, was, “I suppose if it
were here it would have to be in a traveling-dress,” which the women
thought frivolous.

Yet it was undeniable that the artist and Marion had a common taste for
hunting out picturesque places in the wood-paths, among the rocks, and
on the edges of precipices, and they dragged the rest of the party many
a mile through wildernesses of beauty. Sketching was the object of all
these expeditions, but it always happened--there seemed a fatality in it
that whenever they halted anywhere for a rest or a view, the Lamont girl
was sure to take an artistic pose, which the artist couldn't resist, and
his whole occupation seemed to be drawing her, with the Catskills for a
background. “There,” he would say, “stay just as you are; yes, leaning a
little so”--it was wonderful how the lithe figure adapted itself to any
background--“and turn your head this way, looking at me.” The artist
began to draw, and every time he gave a quick glance upwards from his
book, there were the wistful face and those eyes. “Confound it! I beg
your pardon-the light. Will you please turn your eyes a little off, that
way-so.” There was no reason why the artist should be nervous, the
face was perfectly demure; but the fact is that art will have only one
mistress. So the drawing limped on from day to day, and the excursions
became a matter of course. Sometimes the party drove, extending their
explorations miles among the hills, exhilarated by the sparkling air,
excited by the succession of lovely changing prospects, bestowing
their compassion upon the summer boarders in the smartly painted
boarding-houses, and comparing the other big hotels with their own.
They couldn't help looking down on the summer boarders, any more than
cottagers at other places can help a feeling of superiority to people in
hotels. It is a natural desire to make an aristocratic line somewhere.
Of course they saw the Kaaterskill Falls, and bought twenty-five cents'
worth of water to pour over them, and they came very near seeing the
Haines Falls, but were a little too late.

“Have the falls been taken in today?” asked Marion, seriously.

“I'm real sorry, miss,” said the proprietor, “but there's just been a
party here and taken the water. But you can go down and look if you want
to, and it won't cost you a cent.”

They went down, and saw where the falls ought to be. The artist said it
was a sort of dry-plate process, to be developed in the mind afterwards;
Mr. King likened it to a dry smoke without lighting the cigar; and the
doctor said it certainly had the sanitary advantage of not being damp.
The party even penetrated the Platerskill Cove, and were well rewarded
by its exceeding beauty, as is every one who goes there. There are
sketches of all these lovely places in a certain artist's book, all
looking, however, very much alike, and consisting principally of a
graceful figure in a great variety of unstudied attitudes.

“Isn't this a nervous sort of a place?” the artist asked his friend, as
they sat in his chamber overlooking the world.

“Perhaps it is. I have a fancy that some people are born to enjoy the
valley, and some the mountains.”

“I think it makes a person nervous to live on a high place. This feeling
of constant elevation tires one; it gives a fellow no such sense of
bodily repose as he has in a valley. And the wind, it's constantly
nagging, rattling the windows and banging the doors. I can't escape the
unrest of it.” The artist was turning the leaves and contemplating the
poverty of his sketch-book. “The fact is, I get better subjects on the
seashore.”

“Probably the sea would suit us better. By the way, did I tell you that
Miss Lamont's uncle came last night from Richmond? Mr. De Long, uncle on
the mother's side. I thought there was French blood in her.”

“What is he like?”

“Oh, a comfortable bachelor, past middle age; business man; Southern;
just a little touch of the 'cyar' for 'car.' Said he was going to take
his niece to Newport next week. Has Miss Lamont said anything about
going there?”

“Well, she did mention it the other day.”

The house was filling up, and, King thought, losing its family aspect.
He had taken quite a liking for the society of the pretty invalid girl,
and was fond of sitting by her, seeing the delicate color come back
to her cheeks, and listening to her shrewd little society comments. He
thought she took pleasure in having him push her wheel-chair up and down
the piazza at least she rewarded him by grateful looks, and complimented
him by asking his advice about reading and about being useful to others.
Like most young girls whose career of gayety is arrested as hers was,
she felt an inclination to coquet a little with the serious side of
life. All this had been pleasant to Mr. King, but now that so many more
guests had come, he found himself most of the time out of business. The
girl's chariot was always surrounded by admirers and sympathizers. All
the young men were anxious to wheel her up and down by the hour; there
was always a strife for this sweet office; and at night, when the
vehicle had been lifted up the first flight, it was beautiful to see
the eagerness of sacrifice exhibited by these young fellows to wheel
her down the long corridor to her chamber. After all, it is a kindly,
unselfish world, full of tenderness for women, and especially for
invalid women who are pretty. There was all day long a competition of
dudes and elderly widowers and bachelors to wait on her. One thought she
needed a little more wheeling; another volunteered to bring her a glass
of water; there was always some one to pick up her fan, to recover her
handkerchief (why is it that the fans and handkerchiefs of ugly women
seldom go astray?), to fetch her shawl--was there anything they could
do? The charming little heiress accepted all the attentions with most
engaging sweetness. Say what you will, men have good hearts.

Yes, they were going to Newport. King and Forbes, who had not had a
Fourth of July for some time, wanted to see what it was like at Newport.
Mr. De Long would like their company. But before they went the artist
must make one more trial at a sketch-must get the local color. It was a
large party that went one morning to see it done under the famous ledge
of rocks on the Red Path. It is a fascinating spot, with its coolness,
sense of seclusion, mosses, wild flowers, and ferns. In a small grotto
under the frowning wall of the precipice is said to be a spring, but it
is difficult to find, and lovers need to go a great many times in search
of it. People not in love can sometimes find a damp place in the sand.
The question was where Miss Lamont should pose. Should she nestle under
the great ledge, or sit on a projecting rock with her figure against
the sky? The artist could not satisfy himself, and the girl, always
adventurous, kept shifting her position, climbing about on the jutting
ledge, until she stood at last on the top of the precipice, which was
some thirty or forty feet high. Against the top leaned a dead balsam,
just as some tempest had cast it, its dead branches bleached and
scraggy. Down this impossible ladder the girl announced her intention
of coming. “No, no,” shouted a chorus of voices; “go round; it's unsafe;
the limbs will break; you can't get through them; you'll break your
neck.” The girl stood calculating the possibility. The more difficult
the feat seemed, the more she longed to try it.

“For Heaven's sake don't try it, Miss Lamont,” cried the artist.

“But I want to. I think I must. You can sketch me in the act. It will be
something new.”

And before any one could interpose, the resolute girl caught hold of the
balsam and swung off. A boy or a squirrel would have made nothing of
the feat. But for a young lady in long skirts to make her way down that
balsam, squirming about and through the stubs and dead limbs, testing
each one before she trusted her weight to it, was another affair. It
needed a very cool head and the skill of a gymnast. To transfer her hold
from one limb to another, and work downward, keeping her skirts neatly
gathered about her feet, was an achievement that the spectators could
appreciate; the presence of spectators made it much more difficult. And
the lookers-on were a good deal more excited than the girl. The artist
had his book ready, and when the little figure was half-way down,
clinging in a position at once artistic and painful, he began. “Work
fast,” said the girl. “It's hard hanging on.” But the pencil wouldn't
work. The artist made a lot of wild marks. He would have given the
world to sketch in that exquisite figure, but every time he cast his eye
upward the peril was so evident that his hand shook. It was no use. The
danger increased as she descended, and with it the excitement of the
spectators. All the young gentlemen declared they would catch her if she
fell, and some of them seemed to hope she might drop into their arms.
Swing off she certainly must when the lowest limb was reached. But that
was ten feet above the ground and the alighting-place was sharp rock and
broken bowlders. The artist kept up a pretense of drawing. He felt every
movement of her supple figure and the strain upon the slender arms, but
this could not be transferred to the book. It was nervous work. The girl
was evidently getting weary, but not losing her pluck. The young fellows
were very anxious that the artist should keep at his work; they would
catch her. There was a pause; the girl had come to the last limb; she
was warily meditating a slide or a leap; the young men were quite ready
to sacrifice themselves; but somehow, no one could tell exactly how, the
girl swung low, held herself suspended by her hands for an instant,
and then dropped into the right place--trust a woman for that; and
the artist, his face flushed, set her down upon the nearest flat rock.
Chorus from the party, “She is saved!”

“And my sketch is gone up again.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Forbes.” The girl looked full of innocent regret. “But
when I was up there I had to come down that tree. I couldn't help it,
really.”




IV. NEWPORT

On the Fourth of July, at five o'clock in the morning, the porters
called the sleepers out of their berths at Wickford Junction. Modern
civilization offers no such test to the temper and to personal
appearance as this early preparation to meet the inspection of society
after a night in the stuffy and luxuriously upholstered tombs of a
sleeping-car. To get into them at night one must sacrifice dignity; to
get out of them in the morning, clad for the day, gives the proprietors
a hard rub. It is wonderful, however, considering the twisting and
scrambling in the berth and the miscellaneous and ludicrous presentation
of humanity in the washroom at the end of the car, how presentable
people make themselves in a short space of time. One realizes the debt
of the ordinary man to clothes, and how fortunate it is for society that
commonly people do not see each other in the morning until art has
done its best for them. To meet the public eye, cross and tousled
and disarranged, requires either indifference or courage. It is
disenchanting to some of our cherished ideals. Even the trig,
irreproachable commercial drummer actually looks banged-up, and nothing
of a man; but after a few moments, boot-blacked and paper-collared, he
comes out as fresh as a daisy, and all ready to drum.

Our travelers came out quite as well as could be expected, the artist
sleepy and a trifle disorganized, Mr. King in a sort of facetious
humor that is more dangerous than grumbling, Mr. De Long yawning and
stretching and declaring that he had not slept a wink, while Marion
alighted upon the platform unruffled in plumage, greeting the morning
like a bird. There were the usual early loafers at the station, hands
deep in pockets, ruminant, listlessly observant. No matter at what hour
of day or night a train may arrive or depart at a country station in
America, the loafers are so invariably there in waiting that they seem
to be a part of our railway system. There is something in the life and
movement that seems to satisfy all the desire for activity they have.

Even the most sleepy tourist could not fail to be impressed with the
exquisite beauty of the scene at Wickford Harbor, where the boat was
taken for Newport. The slow awaking of morning life scarcely disturbed
its tranquillity. Sky and sea and land blended in a tone of refined
gray. The shores were silvery, a silvery light came out of the east,
streamed through the entrance of the harbor, and lay molten and glowing
on the water. The steamer's deck and chairs and benches were wet with
dew, the noises in transferring the baggage and getting the boat
under way were all muffled and echoed in the surrounding silence. The
sail-boats that lay at anchor on the still silver surface sent down long
shadows, and the slim masts seemed driven down into the water to hold
the boats in place. The little village was still asleep. It was such
a contrast; the artist was saying to Marion, as they leaned over the
taffrail, to the new raw villages in the Catskills. The houses were
large, and looked solid and respectable, many of them were shingled on
the sides, a spire peeped out over the green trees, and the hamlet
was at once homelike and picturesque. Refinement is the note of the
landscape. Even the old warehouses dropping into the water, and the
decaying piles of the wharves, have a certain grace. How graciously the
water makes into the land, following the indentations, and flowing in
little streams, going in and withdrawing gently and regretfully, and
how the shore puts itself out in low points, wooing the embrace of the
sea--a lovely union. There is no haze, but all outlines are softened in
the silver light. It is like a dream, and there is no disturbance of the
repose when a family party, a woman, a child, and a man come down to the
shore, slip into a boat, and scull away out by the lighthouse and the
rocky entrance of the harbor, off, perhaps, for a day's pleasure. The
artist has whipped out his sketch-book to take some outlines of the
view, and his comrade, looking that way, thinks this group a pleasing
part of the scene, and notes how the salt, dewy morning air has brought
the color into the sensitive face of the girl. There are not many such
hours in a lifetime, he is also thinking, when nature can be seen in
such a charming mood, and for the moment it compensates for the night
ride.

The party indulged this feeling when they landed, still early, at the
Newport wharf, and decided to walk through the old town up to the hotel,
perfectly well aware that after this no money would hire them to leave
their beds and enjoy this novel sensation at such an hour. They had the
street to themselves, and the promenade was one of discovery, and had
much the interest of a landing in a foreign city.

“It is so English,” said the artist.

“It is so colonial,” said Mr. King, “though I've no doubt that any one
of the sleeping occupants of these houses would be wide-awake instantly,
and come out and ask you to breakfast, if they heard you say it is so
English.”

“If they were not restrained,” Marion suggested, “by the feeling that
that would not be English. How fine the shade trees, and what brilliant
banks of flowers!”

“And such lawns! We cannot make this turf in Virginia,” was the
reflection of Mr. De Long.

“Well, colonial if you like,” the artist replied to Mr. King. “What is
best is in the colonial style; but you notice that all the new houses
are built to look old, and that they have had Queen Anne pretty bad,
though the colors are good.”

“That's the way with some towns. Queen Anne seems to strike them all
of a sudden, and become epidemic. The only way to prevent it is to
vaccinate, so to speak, with two or three houses, and wait; then it is
not so likely to spread.”

Laughing and criticising and admiring, the party strolled along the
shaded avenue to the Ocean House. There were as yet no signs of life
at the Club, or the Library, or the Casino; but the shops were getting
open, and the richness and elegance of the goods displayed in the
windows were the best evidence of the wealth and refinement of the
expected customers--culture and taste always show themselves in the
shops of a town. The long gray-brown front of the Casino, with its
shingled sides and hooded balconies and galleries, added to the already
strong foreign impression of the place. But the artist was dissatisfied.
It was not at all his idea of Independence Day; it was like Sunday, and
Sunday without any foreign gayety. He had expected firing of cannon
and ringing of bells--there was not even a flag out anywhere; the
celebration of the Fourth seemed to have shrunk into a dull and decorous
avoidance of all excitement. “Perhaps,” suggested Miss Lamont, “if the
New-Englanders keep the Fourth of July like Sunday, they will by and by
keep Sunday like the Fourth of July. I hear it is the day for excursions
on this coast.”

Mr. King was perfectly well aware that in going to a hotel in Newport
he was putting himself out of the pale of the best society; but he had
a fancy for viewing this society from the outside, having often enough
seen it from the inside. And perhaps he had other reasons for this
eccentric conduct. He had, at any rate, declined the invitation of his
cousin, Mrs. Bartlett Glow, to her cottage on the Point of Rocks. It was
not without regret that he did this, for his cousin was a very charming
woman, and devoted exclusively to the most exclusive social life. Her
husband had been something in the oil line in New York, and King had
watched with interest his evolution from the business man into the
full-blown existence of a man of fashion. The process is perfectly
charted. Success in business, membership in a good club, tandem in the
Park, introduction to a good house, marriage to a pretty girl of family
and not much money, a yacht, a four-in-hand, a Newport villa. His name
had undergone a like evolution. It used to be written on his business
card, Jacob B. Glow. It was entered at the club as J. Bartlett Glow. On
the wedding invitations it was Mr. Bartlett Glow, and the dashing pair
were always spoken of at Newport as the Bartlett-Glows.

When Mr. King descended from his room at the Ocean House, although it
was not yet eight o'clock, he was not surprised to see Mr. Benson tilted
back in one of the chairs on the long piazza, out of the way of the
scrubbers, with his air of patient waiting and observation. Irene used
to say that her father ought to write a book--“Life as Seen from Hotel
Piazzas.” His only idea of recreation when away from business seemed to
be sitting about on them.

“The women-folks,” he explained to Mr. King, who took a chair beside
him, “won't be down for an hour yet. I like, myself, to see the show
open.”

“Are there many people here?”

“I guess the house is full enough. But I can't find out that anybody is
actually stopping here, except ourselves and a lot of schoolmarms come
to attend a convention. They seem to enjoy it. The rest, those I've
talked with, just happen to be here for a day or so, never have been
to a hotel in Newport before, always stayed in a cottage, merely put up
here now to visit friends in cottages. You'll see that none of them act
like they belonged to the hotel. Folks are queer.”

At a place we were last summer all the summer boarders, in
boarding-houses round, tried to act like they were staying at the big
hotel, and the hotel people swelled about on the fact of being at a
hotel. Here you're nobody. I hired a carriage by the week, driver in
buttons, and all that. It don't make any difference. I'll bet a gold
dollar every cottager knows it's hired, and probably they think by the
drive.”

“It's rather stupid, then, for you and the ladies.”

“Not a bit of it. It's the nicest place in America: such grass, such
horses, such women, and the drive round the island--there's nothing
like it in the country. We take it every day. Yes, it would be a little
lonesome but for the ocean. It's a good deal like a funeral procession,
nobody ever recognizes you, not even the hotel people who are in hired
hacks. If I were to come again, Mr. King, I'd come in a yacht, drive up
from it in a box on two wheels, with a man clinging on behind with his
back to me, and have a cottage with an English gardener. That would
fetch 'em. Money won't do it, not at a hotel. But I'm not sure but I
like this way best. It's an occupation for a man to keep up a cottage.”

“And so you do not find it dull?”

“No. When we aren't out riding, she and Irene go on to the cliffs, and I
sit here and talk real estate. It's about all there is to talk of.”

There was an awkward moment or two when the two parties met in the lobby
and were introduced before going in to breakfast. There was a little
putting up of guards on the part of the ladies. Between Irene and Marion
passed that rapid glance of inspection, that one glance which includes a
study and the passing of judgment upon family, manners, and dress, down
to the least detail. It seemed to be satisfactory, for after a few words
of civility the two girls walked in together, Irene a little dignified,
to be sure, and Marion with her wistful, half-inquisitive expression.
Mr. King could not be mistaken in thinking Irene's manner a little
constrained and distant to him, and less cordial than it was to Mr.
Forbes, but the mother righted the family balance.

“I'm right glad you've come, Mr. King. It's like seeing somebody from
home. I told Irene that when you came I guess we should know somebody.
It's an awful fashionable place.”

“And you have no acquaintances here?”

“No, not really. There's Mrs. Peabody has a cottage here, what they call
a cottage, but there no such house in Cyrusville. We drove past it.
Her daughter was to school with Irene. We've met 'em out riding several
times, and Sally (Miss Peabody) bowed to Irene, and pa and I bowed to
everybody, but they haven't called. Pa says it's because we are at a
hotel, but I guess it's been company or something. They were real good
friends at school.”

Mr. King laughed. “Oh, Mrs. Benson, the Peabodys were nobodys only a
few years ago. I remember when they used to stay at one of the smaller
hotels.”

“Well, they seem nice, stylish people, and I'm sorry on Irene's
account.”

At breakfast the party had topics enough in common to make conversation
lively. The artist was sure he should be delighted with the beauty and
finish of Newport. Miss Lamont doubted if she should enjoy it as much as
the freedom and freshness of the Catskills. Mr. King amused himself
with drawing out Miss Benson on the contrast with Atlantic City. The
dining-room was full of members of the Institute, in attendance upon the
annual meeting, graybearded, long-faced educators, devotees of theories
and systems, known at a glance by a certain earnestness of manner and
intensity of expression, middle-aged women of a resolute, intellectual
countenance, and a great crowd of youthful schoolmistresses, just on the
dividing line between domestic life and self-sacrifice, still full of
sentiment, and still leaning perhaps more to Tennyson and Lowell than to
mathematics and Old English.

“They have a curious, mingled air of primness and gayety, as if gayety
were not quite proper,” the artist began. “Some of them look downright
interesting, and I've no doubt they are all excellent women.”

“I've no doubt they are all good as gold,” put in Mr. King. “These
women are the salt of New England.” (Irene looked up quickly and
appreciatively at the speaker.) “No fashionable nonsense about them.
What's in you, Forbes, to shy so at a good woman?”

“I don't shy at a good woman--but three hundred of them! I don't
want all my salt in one place. And see here--I appeal to you, Miss
Lamont--why didn't these girls dress simply, as they do at home, and
not attempt a sort of ill-fitting finery that is in greater contrast to
Newport than simplicity would be?”

“If you were a woman,” said Marion, looking demurely, not at Mr. Forbes,
but at Irene, “I could explain it to you. You don't allow anything for
sentiment and the natural desire to please, and it ought to be just
pathetic to you that these girls, obeying a natural instinct, missed the
expression of it a little.”

“Men are such critics,” and Irene addressed the remark to Marion, “they
pretend to like intellectual women, but they can pardon anything better
than an ill-fitting gown. Better be frivolous than badly dressed.”

“Well,” stoutly insisted Forbes, “I'll take my chance with the
well-dressed ones always; I don't believe the frumpy are the most
sensible.”

“No; but you make out a prima facie case against a woman for want of
taste in dress, just as you jump at the conclusion that because a woman
dresses in such a way as to show she gives her mind to it she is of the
right sort. I think it's a relief to see a convention of women devoted
to other things who are not thinking of their clothes.”

“Pardon me; the point I made was that they are thinking of their
clothes, and thinking erroneously.”

“Why don't you ask leave to read a paper, Forbes, on the relation of
dress to education?” asked Mr. King.

They rose from the table just as Mrs. Benson was saying that for her
part she liked these girls, they were so homelike; she loved to hear
them sing college songs and hymns in the parlor. To sing the songs of
the students is a wild, reckless dissipation for girls in the country.

When Mr. King and Irene walked up and down the corridor after breakfast
the girl's constraint seemed to have vanished, and she let it be seen
that she had sincere pleasure in renewing the acquaintance. King himself
began to realize how large a place the girl's image had occupied in
his mind. He was not in love--that would be absurd on such short
acquaintance--but a thought dropped into the mind ripens without
consciousness, and he found that he had anticipated seeing Irene again
with decided interest. He remembered exactly how she looked at Fortress
Monroe, especially one day when she entered the parlor, bowing right and
left to persons she knew, stopping to chat with one and another,
tall, slender waist swelling upwards in symmetrical lines, brown hair,
dark-gray eyes--he recalled every detail, the high-bred air (which was
certainly not inherited), the unconscious perfect carriage, and his
thinking in a vague way that such ease and grace meant good living
and leisure and a sound body. This, at any rate, was the image in his
mind--a sufficiently distracting thing for a young man to carry about
with him; and now as he walked beside her he was conscious that there
was something much finer in her than the image he had carried with him,
that there was a charm of speech and voice and expression that made her
different from any other woman he had ever seen. Who can define this
charm, this difference? Some women have it for the universal man--they
are desired of every man who sees them; their way to marriage (which is
commonly unfortunate) is over a causeway of prostrate forms, if not
of cracked hearts; a few such women light up and make the romance of
history. The majority of women fortunately have it for one man only, and
sometimes he never appears on the scene at all! Yet every man thinks his
choice belongs to the first class; even King began to wonder that all
Newport was not raving over Irene's beauty. The present writer saw her
one day as she alighted from a carriage at the Ocean House, her face
flushed with the sea air, and he remembers that he thought her a fine
girl. “By George, that's a fine woman!” exclaimed a New York bachelor,
who prided himself on knowing horses and women and all that; but the
country is full of fine women--this to him was only one of a thousand.

What were this couple talking about as they promenaded, basking in each
other's presence? It does not matter. They were getting to know each
other, quite as much by what they did not say as by what they did say,
by the thousand little exchanges of feeling and sentiment which are
all-important, and never appear even in a stenographer's report of a
conversation. Only one thing is certain about it, that the girl could
recall every word that Mr. King said, even his accent and look, long
after he had forgotten even the theme of the talk. One thing, however,
he did carry away with him, which set him thinking. The girl had been
reading the “Life of Carlyle,” and she took up the cudgels for the old
curmudgeon, as King called him, and declared that, when all was said,
Mrs. Carlyle was happier with him than she would have been with any
other man in England. “What woman of spirit wouldn't rather mate with an
eagle, and quarrel half the time, than with a humdrum barn-yard fowl?”
 And Mr. Stanhope King, when he went away, reflected that he who had
fitted himself for the bar, and traveled extensively, and had a moderate
competence, hadn't settled down to any sort of career. He had always an
intention of doing something in a vague way; but now the thought that
he was idle made him for the first time decidedly uneasy, for he had an
indistinct notion that Irene couldn't approve of such a life.

This feeling haunted him as he was making a round of calls that day. He
did not return to lunch or dinner--if he had done so he would have
found that lunch was dinner and that dinner was supper--another vital
distinction between the hotel and the cottage. The rest of the party had
gone to the cliffs with the artist, the girls on a pretense of learning
to sketch from nature. Mr. King dined with his cousin.

“You are a bad boy, Stanhope,” was the greeting of Mrs. Bartlett Glow,
“not to come to me. Why did you go to the hotel?”

“Oh, I thought I'd see life; I had an unaccountable feeling of
independence. Besides, I've a friend with me, a very clever artist, who
is re-seeing his country after an absence of some years. And there are
some other people.”

“Oh, yes. What is her name?”

“Why, there is quite a party. We met them at different places. There's
a very bright New York girl, Miss Lamont, and her uncle from Richmond.”
 (“Never heard of her,” interpolated Mrs. Glow.) “And a Mr. and Mrs.
Benson and their daughter, from Ohio. Mr. Benson has made money; Mrs.
Benson, good-hearted old lady, rather plain and--”

“Yes, I know the sort; had a falling-out with Lindley Murray in her
youth and never made it up. But what I want to know is about the girl.
What makes you beat about the bush so? What's her name?”

“Irene. She is an uncommonly clever girl; educated; been abroad a good
deal, studying in Germany; had all advantages; and she has cultivated
tastes; and the fact is that out in Cyrusville--that is where they
live--You know how it is here in America when the girl is educated and
the old people are not--”

“The long and short of it is, you want me to invite them here. I suppose
the girl is plain, too--takes after her mother?”

“Not exactly. Mr. Forbes--that's my friend--says she's a beauty. But if
you don't mind, Penelope, I was going to ask you to be a little civil to
them.”

“Well, I'll admit she is handsome--a very striking-looking girl. I've
seen them driving on the Avenue day after day. Now, Stanhope, I don't
mind asking them here to a five o'clock; I suppose the mother will have
to come. If she was staying with somebody here it would be easier. Yes,
I'll do it to oblige you, if you will make yourself useful while you
are here. There are some girls I want you to know, and mind, my young
friend, that you don't go and fall in love with a country girl whom
nobody knows, out of the set. It won't be comfortable.”

“You are always giving me good advice, Penelope, and I should be a
different man if I had profited by it.”

“Don't be satirical, because you've coaxed me to do you a favor.”

Late in the evening the gentlemen of the hotel party looked in at the
skating-rink, a great American institution that has for a large class
taken the place of the ball, the social circle, the evening meeting.
It seemed a little incongruous to find a great rink at Newport, but an
epidemic is stronger than fashion, and even the most exclusive summer
resort must have its rink. Roller-skating is said to be fine exercise,
but the benefit of it as exercise would cease to be apparent if there
were a separate rink for each sex. There is a certain exhilaration in
the lights and music and the lively crowd, and always an attraction in
the freedom of intercourse offered. The rink has its world as the opera
has, its romances and its heroes. The frequenters of the rink know the
young women and the young men who have a national reputation as adepts,
and their exhibitions are advertised and talked about as are the
appearances of celebrated 'prime donne' and 'tenori' at the opera. The
visitors had an opportunity to see one of these exhibitions. After a
weary watching of the monotonous and clattering round and round of the
swinging couples or the stumbling single skaters, the floor was cleared,
and the darling of the rink glided upon the scene. He was a slender,
handsome fellow, graceful and expert to the nicest perfection in his
profession. He seemed not so much to skate as to float about the floor,
with no effort except volition. His rhythmic movements were followed
with pleasure, but it was his feats of dexterity, which were more
wonderful than graceful, that brought down the house. It was evident
that he was a hero to the female part of the spectators, and no doubt
his charming image continued to float round and round in the brain of
many a girl when she put her, head on the pillow that night. It is said
that a good many matches which are not projected or registered in heaven
are made at the rink.

At the breakfast-table it appeared that the sketching-party had been a
great success--for everybody except the artist, who had only some rough
memoranda, like notes for a speech, to show. The amateurs had made
finished pictures.

Miss Benson had done some rocks, and had got their hardness very well.
Miss Lamont's effort was more ambitious; her picture took in no less
than miles of coast, as much sea as there was room for on the paper,
a navy of sail-boats, and all the rocks and figures that were in
the foreground, and it was done with a great deal of naivete and
conscientiousness. When it was passed round the table, the comments were
very flattering.

“It looks just like it,” said Mr. Benson.

“It's very comprehensive,” remarked Mr. Forbes.

“What I like, Marion,” said Mr. De Long, holding it out at arm's-length,
“is the perspective; it isn't an easy thing to put ships up in the sky.”

“Of course,” explained Irene, “it was a kind of hazy day.”

“But I think Miss Lamont deserves credit for keeping the haze out of
it.” King was critically examining it, turning his head from side
to side. “I like it; but I tell you what I think it lacks: it lacks
atmosphere. Why don't you cut a hole in it, Miss Lamont, and let the air
in?”

“Mr. King,” replied Miss Lamont, quite seriously, “you are a real
friend, I can only repay you by taking you to church this morning.”

“You didn't make much that time, King,” said Forbes, as he lounged out
of the room.

After church King accepted a seat in the Benson carriage for a drive on
the Ocean Road. He who takes this drive for the first time is enchanted
with the scene, and it has so much variety, deliciousness in curve and
winding, such graciousness in the union of sea and shore, such charm of
color, that increased acquaintance only makes one more in love with it.
A good part of its attraction lies in the fickleness of its aspect. Its
serene and soft appearance might pall if it were not now and then, and
often suddenly, and with little warning, transformed into a wild coast,
swept by a tearing wind, enveloped in a thick fog, roaring with the
noise of the angry sea slapping the rocks and breaking in foam on the
fragments its rage has cast down. This elementary mystery and terror
is always present, with one familiar with the coast, to qualify the
gentleness of its lovelier aspects. It has all moods. Perhaps the most
exhilarating is that on a brilliant day, when shore and sea sparkle in
the sun, and the waves leap high above the cliffs, and fall in diamond
showers.

This Sunday the shore was in its most gracious mood, the landscape as
if newly created. There was a light, luminous fog, which revealed just
enough to excite the imagination, and refined every outline and softened
every color. Mr. King and Irene left the carriage to follow the road,
and wandered along the sea path. What softness and tenderness of color
in the gray rocks, with the browns and reds of the vines and lichens!
They went out on the iron fishing-stands, and looked down at the shallow
water. The rocks under water took on the most exquisite shades--purple
and malachite and brown; the barnacles clung to them; the long
sea-weeds, in half a dozen varieties, some in vivid colors, swept over
them, flowing with the restless tide, like the long locks of a drowned
woman's hair. King, who had dabbled a little in natural history, took
great delight in pointing out to Irene this varied and beautiful life
of the sea; and the girl felt a new interest in science, for it was all
pure science, and she opened her heart to it, not knowing that love can
go in by the door of science as well as by any other opening. Was
Irene really enraptured by the dear little barnacles and the exquisite
sea-weeds? I have seen a girl all of a flutter with pleasure in a
laboratory when a young chemist was showing her the retorts and the
crooked tubes and the glass wool and the freaks of color which the
alkalies played with the acids. God has made them so, these women, and
let us be thankful for it.

What a charm there was about everything! Occasionally the mist became so
thin that a long line of coast and a great breadth of sea were visible,
with the white sails drifting.

“There's nothing like it,” said King--“there's nothing like this island.
It seems as if the Creator had determined to show man, once for all,
a landscape perfectly refined, you might almost say with the beauty
of high-breeding, refined in outline, color, everything softened into
loveliness, and yet touched with the wild quality of picturesqueness.”

“It's just a dream at this moment,” murmured Irene. They were standing
on a promontory of rock. “See those figures of people there through
the mist--silhouettes only. And look at that vessel--there--no--it has
gone.”

As she was speaking, a sail-vessel began to loom up large in the
mysterious haze. But was it not the ghost of a ship? For an instant it
was coming, coming; it was distinct; and when it was plainly in sight
it faded away, like a dissolving view, and was gone. The appearance was
unreal. What made it more spectral was the bell on the reefs, swinging
in its triangle, always sounding, and the momentary scream of the
fog-whistle. It was like an enchanted coast. Regaining the carriage,
they drove out to the end, Agassiz's Point, where, when the mist lifted,
they saw the sea all round dotted with sails, the irregular coasts and
islands with headlands and lighthouses, all the picture still, land and
water in a summer swoon.

Late that afternoon all the party were out upon the cliff path in front
of the cottages. There is no more lovely sea stroll in the world, the
way winding over the cliff edge by the turquoise sea, where the turf,
close cut and green as Erin, set with flower beds and dotted with
noble trees, slopes down, a broad pleasure park, from the stately and
picturesque villas. But it was a social mistake to go there on Sunday.
Perhaps it is not the height of good form to walk there any day, but Mr.
King did not know that the fashion had changed, and that on Sunday this
lovely promenade belongs to the butlers and the upper maids, especially
to the butlers, who make it resplendent on Sunday afternoons when the
weather is good. As the weather had thickened in the late afternoon, our
party walked in a dumb-show, listening to the soft swish of the waves on
the rocks below, and watching the figures of other promenaders, who were
good enough ladies and gentlemen in this friendly mist.

The next day Mr. King made a worse mistake. He remembered that at high
noon everybody went down to the first beach, a charming sheltered place
at the bottom of the bay, where the rollers tumble in finely from the
south, to bathe or see others bathe. The beach used to be lined with
carriages at that hour, and the surf, for a quarter of a mile, presented
the appearance of a line of picturesquely clad skirmishers going out to
battle with the surf. Today there were not half a dozen carriages and
omnibuses altogether, and the bathers were few-nursery maids, fragments
of a day-excursion, and some of the fair conventionists. Newport was not
there. Mr. King had led his party into another social blunder. It has
ceased to be fashionable to bathe at Newport.

Strangers and servants may do so, but the cottagers have withdrawn their
support from the ocean. Saltwater may be carried to the house and used
without loss of caste, but bathing in the surf is vulgar. A gentleman
may go down and take a dip alone--it had better be at an early hour--and
the ladies of the house may be heard to apologize for his eccentricity,
as if his fondness for the water were abnormal and quite out of
experience. And the observer is obliged to admit that promiscuous
bathing is vulgar, as it is plain enough to be seen when it becomes
unfashionable. It is charitable to think also that the cottagers have
made it unfashionable because it is vulgar, and not because it is a
cheap and refreshing pleasure accessible to everybody.

Nevertheless, Mr. King's ideas of Newport were upset. “It's a little
off color to walk much on the cliffs; you lose caste if you bathe in the
surf. What can you do?”

“Oh,” explained Miss Lamont, “you can make calls; go to teas and
receptions and dinners; belong to the Casino, but not appear there much;
and you must drive on the Ocean Road, and look as English as you can.
Didn't you notice that Redfern has an establishment on the Avenue?
Well, the London girls wear what Redfern tells them to wear-much to the
improvement of their appearance--and so it has become possible for a
New-Yorker to become partially English without sacrificing her native
taste.”

Before lunch Mrs. Bartlett Glow called on the Bensons, and invited
them to a five-o'clock tea, and Miss Lamont, who happened to be in the
parlor, was included in the invitation. Mrs. Glow was as gracious as
possible, and especially attentive to the old lady, who purred
with pleasure, and beamed and expanded into familiarity under the
encouragement of the woman of the world. In less than ten minutes Mrs.
Glow had learned the chief points in the family history, the state of
health and habits of pa (Mr. Benson), and all about Cyrusville and its
wonderful growth. In all this Mrs. Glow manifested a deep interest, and
learned, by observing out of the corner of her eye, that Irene was in
an agony of apprehension, which she tried to conceal under an increasing
coolness of civility. “A nice lady,” was Mrs. Benson's comment when Mrs.
Glow had taken herself away with her charmingly-scented air of frank
cordiality--“a real nice lady. She seemed just like our folks.”

Irene heaved a deep sigh. “I suppose we shall have to go.”

“Have to go, child? I should think you'd like to go. I never saw such a
girl--never. Pa and me are just studying all the time to please you, and
it seems as if--” And the old lady's voice broke down.

“Why, mother dear”--and the girl, with tears in her eyes, leaned over
her and kissed her fondly, and stroked her hair--“you are just as good
and sweet as you can be; and don't mind me; you know I get in moods
sometimes.”

The old lady pulled her down and kissed her, and looked in her face with
beseeching eyes.

“What an old frump the mother is!” was Mrs. Glow's comment to Stanhope,
when she next met him; “but she is immensely amusing.”

“She is a kind-hearted, motherly woman,” replied King, a little sharply.

“Oh, motherly! Has it come to that? I do believe you are more than half
gone. The girl is pretty; she has a beautiful figure; but my gracious!
her parents are impossible--just impossible. And don't you think she's
a little too intellectual for society? I don't mean too intellectual, of
course, but too mental, don't you know--shows that first. You know what
I mean.”

“But, Penelope, I thought it was the fashion now to be intellectual--go
in for reading, and literary clubs, Dante and Shakespeare, and political
economy, and all that.”

“Yes, I belong to three clubs. I'm going to one tomorrow morning. We are
going to take up the 'Disestablishment of the English Church.' That's
different; we make it fit into social life somehow, and it doesn't
interfere. I'll tell you what, Stanhope, I'll take Miss Benson to the
Town and County Club next Saturday.”

“That will be too intellectual for Miss Benson. I suppose the topic will
be Transcendentalism?”

“No; we have had that. Professor Spor, of Cambridge, is going to lecture
on Bacteria--if that's the way you pronounce it--those mites that get
into everything.”

“I should think it would be very improving. I'll tell Miss Benson that
if she stays in Newport she must improve her mind.”

“You can make yourself as disagreeable as you like to me, but mind you
are on your good behavior at dinner tonight, for the Misses Pelham will
be here.”

The five-o'clock at Mrs. Bartlett Glow's was probably an event to nobody
in Newport except Mrs. Benson. To most it was only an incident in the
afternoon round and drive, but everybody liked to go there, for it
is one of the most charming of the moderate-sized villas. The lawn is
planted in exquisite taste, and the gardener has set in the open spaces
of green the most ingenious devices of flowers and foliage plants, and
nothing could be more enchanting than the view from the wide veranda on
the sea side. In theory, the occupants lounge there, read, embroider,
and swing in hammocks; in point of fact, the breeze is usually so strong
that these occupations are carried on indoors.

The rooms were well filled with a moving, chattering crowd when the
Bensons arrived, but it could not be said that their entrance was
unnoticed, for Mr. Benson was conspicuous, as Irene had in vain hinted
to her father that he would be, in his evening suit, and Mrs. Benson's
beaming, extra-gracious manner sent a little shiver of amusement through
the polite civility of the room.

“I was afraid we should be too late,” was Mrs. Benson's response to the
smiling greeting of the hostess, with a most friendly look towards the
rest of the company. “Mr. Benson is always behindhand in getting dressed
for a party, and he said he guessed the party could wait, and--”

Before the sentence was finished Mrs. Benson found herself passed on and
in charge of a certain general, who was charged by the hostess to get
her a cup of tea. Her talk went right on, however, and Irene, who was
still standing by the host, noticed that wherever her mother went there
was a lull in the general conversation, a slight pause as if to catch
what this motherly old person might be saying, and such phrases as,
“It doesn't agree with me, general; I can't eat it,” “Yes, I got the
rheumatiz in New Orleans, and he did too,” floated over the hum of talk.

In the introduction and movement that followed Irene became one of a
group of young ladies and gentlemen who, after the first exchange of
civilities, went on talking about matters of which she knew nothing,
leaving her wholly out of the conversation. The matters seemed to
be very important, and the conversation was animated: it was about
so-and-so who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or the last
evening at the Casino, or the new trap on the Avenue--the delightful
little chit-chat by means of which those who are in society exchange
good understandings, but which excludes one not in the circle. The young
gentleman next to Irene threw in an explanation now and then, but she
was becoming thoroughly uncomfortable. She could not be unconscious,
either, that she was the object of polite transient scrutiny by the
ladies, and of glances of interest from gentlemen who did not approach
her. She began to be annoyed by the staring (the sort of stare that a
woman recognizes as impudent admiration) of a young fellow who leaned
against the mantel--a youth in English clothes who had caught very
successfully the air of an English groom. Two girls near her, to whom
she had been talking, began speaking in lowered voices in French, but
she could not help overhearing them, and her face flushed hotly when
she found that her mother and her appearance were the subject of their
foreign remarks.

Luckily at the moment Mr. King approached, and Irene extended her hand
and said, with a laugh, “Ah, monsieur,” speaking in a very pretty Paris
accent, and perhaps with unnecessary distinctness, “you were quite
right: the society here is very different from Cyrusville; there they
all talk about each other.”

Mr. King, who saw that something had occurred, was quick-witted enough
to reply jestingly in French, as they moved away, but he asked, as soon
as they were out of ear-shot, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” said the girl, recovering her usual serenity. “I only said
something for the sake of saying something; I didn't mean to speak so
disrespectfully of my own town. But isn't it singular how local and
provincial society talk is everywhere? I must look up mother, and then I
want you to take me on the veranda for some air. What a delightful house
this is of your cousin's!”

The two young ladies who had dropped into French looked at each other
for a moment after Irene moved away, and one of them spoke for both when
she exclaimed: “Did you ever see such rudeness in a drawing-room!
Who could have dreamed that she understood?” Mrs. Benson had been
established very comfortably in a corner with Professor Slem, who was
listening with great apparent interest to her accounts of the early life
in Ohio. Irene seemed relieved to get away into the open air, but she
was in a mood that Mr. King could not account for. Upon the veranda they
encountered Miss Lamont and the artist, whose natural enjoyment of the
scene somewhat restored her equanimity. Could there be anything more
refined and charming in the world than this landscape, this hospitable,
smiling house, with the throng of easy-mannered, pleasant-speaking
guests, leisurely flowing along in the conventional stream of social
comity. One must be a churl not to enjoy it. But Irene was not sorry
when, presently, it was time to go, though she tried to extract some
comfort from her mother's enjoyment of the occasion. It was beautiful.
Mr. Benson was in a calculating mood. He thought it needed a great deal
of money to make things run so smoothly.

Why should one inquire in such a paradise if things do run smoothly?
Cannot one enjoy a rose without pulling it up by the roots? I have no
patience with those people who are always looking on the seamy side. I
agree with the commercial traveler who says that it will only be in the
millennium that all goods will be alike on both sides. Mr. King made
the acquaintance in Newport of the great but somewhat philosophical
Mr. Snodgrass, who is writing a work on “The Discomforts of the Rich,”
 taking a view of life which he says has been wholly overlooked. He
declares that their annoyances, sufferings, mortifications, envies,
jealousies, disappointments, dissatisfactions (and so on through the
dictionary of disagreeable emotions), are a great deal more than those
of the poor, and that they are more worthy of sympathy. Their troubles
are real and unbearable, because they are largely of the mind. All these
are set forth with so much powerful language and variety of illustration
that King said no one could read the book without tears for the rich of
Newport, and he asked Mr. Snodgrass why he did not organize a society
for their relief. But the latter declared that it was not a matter
for levity. The misery is real. An imaginary case would illustrate his
meaning. Suppose two persons quarrel about a purchase of land, and one
builds a stable on his lot so as to shut out his neighbor's view of the
sea. Would not the one suffer because he could not see the ocean, and
the other by reason of the revengeful state of his mind? He went on
to argue that the owner of a splendid villa might have, for reasons he
gave, less content in it than another person in a tiny cottage so small
that it had no spare room for his mother-in-law even, and that in fact
his satisfaction in his own place might be spoiled by the more
showy place of his neighbor. Mr. Snodgrass attempts in his book a
philosophical explanation of this. He says that if every man designed
his own cottage, or had it designed as an expression of his own ideas,
and developed his grounds and landscape according to his own tastes,
working it out himself, with the help of specialists, he would be
satisfied. But when owners have no ideas about architecture or about
gardening, and their places are the creation of some experimenting
architect and a foreign gardener, and the whole effort is not to express
a person's individual taste and character, but to make a show, then
discontent as to his own will arise whenever some new and more showy
villa is built. Mr. Benson, who was poking about a good deal, strolling
along the lanes and getting into the rears of the houses, said, when
this book was discussed, that his impression was that the real object of
these fine places was to support a lot of English gardeners, grooms,
and stable-boys. They are a kind of aristocracy. They have really made
Newport (that is the summer, transient Newport, for it is largely a
transient Newport). “I've been inquiring,” continued Mr. Benson, “and
you'd be surprised to know the number of people who come here, buy or
build expensive villas, splurge out for a year or two, then fail or get
tired of it, and disappear.”

Mr. Snodgrass devotes a chapter to the parvenues at Newport. By the
parvenu--his definition may not be scientific--he seems to mean a person
who is vulgar, but has money, and tries to get into society on the
strength of his money alone. He is more to be pitied than any other
sort of rich man. For he not only works hard and suffers humiliation in
getting his place in society, but after he is in he works just as hard,
and with bitterness in his heart, to keep out other parvenues like
himself. And this is misery.

But our visitors did not care for the philosophizing of Mr.
Snodgrass--you can spoil almost anything by turning it wrong side out.
They thought Newport the most beautiful and finished watering-place in
America. Nature was in the loveliest mood when it was created, and art
has generally followed her suggestions of beauty and refinement. They
did not agree with the cynic who said that Newport ought to be walled
in, and have a gate with an inscription, “None but Millionaires allowed
here.” It is very easy to get out of the artificial Newport and to come
into scenery that Nature has made after artistic designs which artists
are satisfied with. A favorite drive of our friends was to the Second
Beach and the Purgatory Rocks overlooking it. The photographers and the
water-color artists have exaggerated the Purgatory chasm into a Colorado
canon, but anybody can find it by help of a guide. The rock of this
locality is a curious study. It is an agglomerate made of pebbles and
cement, the pebbles being elongated as if by pressure. The rock is
sometimes found in detached fragments having the form of tree trunks.
Whenever it is fractured, the fracture is a clean cut, as if made by
a saw, and through both pebbles and cement, and the ends present the
appearance of a composite cake filled with almonds and cut with a knife.
The landscape is beautiful.

“All the lines are so simple,” the artist explained. “The shore, the
sea, the gray rocks, with here and there the roof of a quaint cottage
to enliven the effect, and few trees, only just enough for contrast with
the long, sweeping lines.”

“You don't like trees?” asked Miss Lamont.

“Yes, in themselves. But trees are apt to be in the way. There are
too many trees in America. It is not often you can get a broad, simple
effect like this.”

It happened to be a day when the blue of the sea was that of the
Mediterranean, and the sky and sea melted into each other, so that a
distant sail-boat seemed to be climbing into the heavens. The waves
rolled in blue on the white sand beach, and broke in silver. Three
young girls on horseback galloping in a race along the hard beach at the
moment gave the needed animation to a very pretty picture.

North of this the land comes down to the sea in knolls of rock breaking
off suddenly-rocks gray with lichen, and shaded with a touch of other
vegetation. Between these knifeback ledges are plots of sea-green grass
and sedge, with little ponds, black, and mirroring the sky. Leaving this
wild bit of nature, which has got the name of Paradise (perhaps because
few people go there), the road back to town sweeps through sweet farm
land; the smell of hay is in the air, loads of hay encumber the roads,
flowers in profusion half smother the farm cottages, and the trees of
the apple-orchards are gnarled and picturesque as olives.

The younger members of the party climbed up into this paradise one day,
leaving the elders in their carriages. They came into a new world, as
unlike Newport as if they had been a thousand miles away. The spot
was wilder than it looked from a distance. The high ridges of rock lay
parallel, with bosky valleys and ponds between, and the sea shining in
the south--all in miniature. On the way to the ridges they passed clean
pasture fields, bowlders, gray rocks, aged cedars with flat tops like
the stone-pines of Italy. It was all wild but exquisite, a refined
wildness recalling the pictures of Rousseau.

Irene and Mr. King strolled along one of the ridges, and sat down on
a rock looking off upon the peaceful expanse, the silver lines of the
curving shores, and the blue sea dotted with white sails.

“Ah,” said the girl, with an inspiration, “this is the sort of
five-o'clock I like.”

“And I'm sure I'd rather be here with you than at the Blims' reception,
from which we ran away.”

“I thought,” said Irene, not looking at him, and jabbing the point of
her parasol into the ground, “I thought you liked Newport.”

“So I do, or did. I thought you would like it. But, pardon me, you seem
somehow different from what you were at Fortress Monroe, or even at
lovely Atlantic City,” this with a rather forced laugh.

“Do I? Well, I suppose I am; that is, different from what you thought
me. I should hate this place in a week more, beautiful as it is.”

“Your mother is pleased here?”

The girl looked up quickly. “I forgot to tell you how much she thanked
you for the invitation to your cousin's. She was delighted there.”

“And you were not?”

“I didn't say so; you were very kind.”

“Oh, kind; I didn't mean to be kind. I was purely selfish in wanting you
to go. Cannot you believe, Miss Benson, that I had some pride in having
my friends see you and know you?”

“Well, I will be as frank as you are, Mr. King. I don't like being shown
off. There, don't look displeased. I didn't mean anything disagreeable.”

“But I hoped you understood my motives better by this time.”

“I did not think about motives, but the fact is” (another jab of the
parasol), “I was made desperately uncomfortable, and always shall be
under such circumstances, and, my friend--I should like to believe you
are my friend--you may as well expect I always will be.”

“I cannot do that. You under--”

“I just see things as they are,” Irene went on, hastily. “You think I
am different here. Well, I don't mind saying that when I made your
acquaintance I thought you different from any man I had met.” But now
it was out, she did mind saying it; and stopped, confused, as if she had
confessed something. But she continued, almost immediately: “I mean I
liked your manner to women; you didn't appear to flatter, and you didn't
talk complimentary nonsense.”

“And now I do?”

“No. Not that. But everything is somehow changed here. Don't let's talk
of it. There's the carriage.”

Irene arose, a little flushed, and walked towards the point. Mr. King,
picking his way along behind her over the rocks, said, with an attempt
at lightening the situation, “Well, Miss Benson, I'm going to be just as
different as ever a man was.”




V. NARRAGANSETT PIER AND NEWPORT AGAIN; MARTHA'S VINEYARD AND PLYMOUTH

We have heard it said that one of the charms, of Narragansett Pier is
that you can see Newport from it. The summer dwellers at the Pier talk a
good deal about liking it better than Newport; it is less artificial and
more restful. The Newporters never say anything about the Pier. The Pier
people say that it is not fair to judge it when you come direct from
Newport, but the longer you stay there the better you like it; and if
any too frank person admits that he would not stay in Narragansett a day
if he could afford to live in Newport, he is suspected of aristocratic
proclivities.

In a calm summer morning, such as our party of pilgrims chose for an
excursion to the Pier, there is no prettier sail in the world than that
out of the harbor, by Conanicut Island and Beaver-tail Light. It is a
holiday harbor, all these seas are holiday seas--the yachts, the sail
vessels, the puffing steamers, moving swiftly from one headland to
another, or loafing about the blue, smiling sea, are all on pleasure
bent. The vagrant vessels that are idly watched from the rocks at the
Pier may be coasters and freight schooners engaged seriously in trade,
but they do not seem so. They are a part of the picture, always to be
seen slowly dipping along in the horizon, and the impression is that
they are manoeuvred for show, arranged for picturesque effect, and that
they are all taken in at night.

The visitors confessed when they landed that the Pier was a contrast to
Newport. The shore below the landing is a line of broken, ragged, slimy
rocks, as if they had been dumped there for a riprap wall. Fronting this
unkempt shore is a line of barrack-like hotels, with a few cottages
of the cheap sort. At the end of this row of hotels is a fine granite
Casino, spacious, solid, with wide verandas, and a tennis-court--such a
building as even Newport might envy. Then come more hotels, a cluster
of cheap shops, and a long line of bath-houses facing a lovely curving
beach. Bathing is the fashion at the Pier, and everybody goes to the
beach at noon. The spectators occupy chairs on the platform in front of
the bath-houses, or sit under tents erected on the smooth sand. At high
noon the scene is very lively, and even picturesque, for the ladies
here dress for bathing with an intention of pleasing. It is generally
supposed that the angels in heaven are not edified by this promiscuous
bathing, and by the spectacle of a crowd of women tossing about in the
surf, but an impartial angel would admit that many of the costumes here
are becoming, and that the effect of the red and yellow caps, making a
color line in the flashing rollers, is charming. It is true that there
are odd figures in the shifting melee--one solitary old gentleman, who
had contrived to get his bathing-suit on hind-side before, wandered
along the ocean margin like a lost Ulysses; and that fat woman and
fat man were never intended for this sort of exhibition; but taken
altogether, with its colors, and the silver flash of the breaking waves,
the scene was exceedingly pretty. Not the least pretty part of it was
the fringe of children tumbling on the beach, following the retreating
waves, and flying from the incoming rollers with screams of delight.
Children, indeed, are a characteristic of Narragansett Pier--children
and mothers. It might be said to be a family place; it is a good deal so
on Sundays, and occasionally when the “business men” come down from the
cities to see how their wives and children get on at the hotels.

After the bathing it is the fashion to meet again at the Casino and take
lunch--sometimes through a straw--and after dinner everybody goes for a
stroll on the cliffs. This is a noble sea-promenade; with its handsome
villas and magnificent rocks, a fair rival to Newport. The walk, as
usually taken, is two or three miles along the bold, rocky shore, but
an ambitious pedestrian may continue it to the light on Point Judith.
Nowhere on this coast are the rocks more imposing, and nowhere do they
offer so many studies in color. The visitor's curiosity is excited by a
massive granite tower which rises out of a mass of tangled woods planted
on the crest of the hill, and his curiosity is not satisfied on nearer
inspection, when he makes his way into this thick and gloomy forest,
and finds a granite cottage near the tower, and the signs of neglect and
wildness that might mark the home of a recluse. What is the object of
this noble tower? If it was intended to adorn the landscape, why was it
ruined by piercing it irregularly with square windows like those of a
factory?

One has to hold himself back from being drawn into the history and
romance of this Narragansett shore. Down below the bathing beach is the
pretentious wooden pile called Canonchet, that already wears the air
of tragedy. And here, at this end, is the mysterious tower, and an ugly
unfinished dwelling-house of granite, with the legend “Druid's Dream”
 carved over the entrance door; and farther inland, in a sandy and
shrubby landscape, is Kendall Green, a private cemetery, with its
granite monument, surrounded by heavy granite posts, every other one of
which is hollowed in the top as a receptacle for food for birds. And one
reads there these inscriptions: “Whatever their mode of faith, or creed,
who feed the wandering birds, will themselves be fed.” “Who helps the
helpless, Heaven will help.” This inland region, now apparently deserted
and neglected, was once the seat of colonial aristocracy, who exercised
a princely hospitality on their great plantations, exchanged visits and
ran horses with the planters of Virginia and the Carolinas, and were
known as far as Kentucky, and perhaps best known for their breed of
Narragansett pacers. But let us get back to the shore.

In wandering along the cliff path in the afternoon, Irene and Mr. King
were separated from the others, and unconsciously extended their stroll,
looking for a comfortable seat in the rocks. The day was perfect. The
sky had only a few fleecy, high-sailing clouds, and the great expanse of
sea sparkled under the hectoring of a light breeze. The atmosphere was
not too clear on the horizon for dreamy effects; all the headlands were
softened and tinged with opalescent colors. As the light struck them,
the sails which enlivened the scene were either dark spots or shining
silver sheets on the delicate blue. At one spot on this shore rises
a vast mass of detached rock, separated at low tide from the shore by
irregular bowlders and a tiny thread of water. In search of a seat the
two strollers made their way across this rivulet over the broken rocks,
passed over the summit of the giant mass, and established themselves
in a cavernous place close to the sea. Here was a natural seat, and
the bulk of the seamed and colored ledge, rising above their heads and
curving around them, shut them out of sight of the land, and left them
alone with the dashing sea, and the gulls that circled and dipped their
silver wings in their eager pursuit of prey. For a time neither
spoke. Irene was looking seaward, and Mr. King, who had a lower seat,
attentively watched the waves lapping the rocks at their feet, and the
fine profile and trim figure of the girl against the sky. He thought he
had never seen her looking more lovely, and yet he had a sense that she
never was so remote from him. Here was an opportunity, to be sure, if he
had anything to say, but some fine feeling of propriety restrained him
from taking advantage of it. It might not be quite fair, in a place so
secluded and remote, and with such sentimental influences, shut in as
they were to the sea and the sky.

“It seems like a world by itself,” she began, as in continuation of her
thought. “They say you can see Gay Head Light from here.”

“Yes. And Newport to the left there, with its towers and trees rising
out of the sea. It is quite like the Venice Lagoon in this light.”

“I think I like Newport better at this distance. It is very poetical.
I don't think I like what is called the world much, when I am close to
it.”

The remark seemed to ask for sympathy, and Mr. King ventured: “Are you
willing to tell me, Miss Benson, why you have not seemed as happy at
Newport as elsewhere? Pardon me; it is not an idle question.” Irene, who
seemed to be looking away beyond Gay Head, did not reply. “I should
like to know if I have been in any way the cause of it. We agreed to
be friends, and I think I have a friend's right to know.” Still no
response. “You must see--you must know,” he went on, hurriedly, “that it
cannot be a matter of indifference to me.”

“It had better be,” she said, as if speaking deliberately to herself,
and still looking away. But suddenly she turned towards him, and the
tears sprang to her eyes, and the words rushed out fiercely, “I wish I
had never left Cyrusville. I wish I had never been abroad. I wish I had
never been educated. It is all a wretched mistake.”

King was unprepared for such a passionate outburst. It was like a rift
in a cloud, through which he had a glimpse of her real life. Words of
eager protest sprang to his lips, but, before they could be uttered,
either her mood had changed or pride had come to the rescue, for she
said: “How silly I am! Everybody has discontented days. Mr. King, please
don't ask me such questions. If you want to be a friend, you will let me
be unhappy now and then, and not say anything about it.”

“But, Miss Benson--Irene--”

“There--'Miss Benson' will do very well.”

“Well, Miss--Irene, then, there was something I wanted to say to you the
other day in Paradise--”

“Look, Mr. King. Did you see that wave? I'm sure it is nearer our feet
than when we sat down here.”

“Oh, that's just an extra lift by the wind. I want to tell you. I must
tell you that life--has all changed since I met you--Irene, I--”

“There! There's no mistake-about that. The last wave came a foot higher
than the other!”

King sprang up. “Perhaps it is the tide. I'll go and see.” He ran up the
rock, leaped across the fissures, and looked over on the side they had
ascended. Sure enough, the tide was coming in. The stones on which they
had stepped were covered, and a deep stream of water, rising with every
pulsation of the sea, now, where there was only a rivulet before. He
hastened back. “There is not a moment to lose. We are caught by the
tide, and if we are not off in five minutes we shall be prisoners here
till the turn.”

He helped her up the slope and over the chasm. The way was very plain
when they came on, but now he could not find it. At the end of every
attempt was a precipice. And the water was rising. A little girl on
the shore shouted to them to follow along a ledge she pointed out, then
descend between two bowlders to the ford. Precious minutes were lost
in accomplishing this circuitous descent, and then they found the
stepping-stones under water, and the sea-weed swishing about the
slippery rocks with the incoming tide. It was a ridiculous position
for lovers, or even “friends”--ridiculous because it had no element of
danger except the ignominy of getting wet. If there was any heroism in
seizing Irene before she could protest, stumbling with his burden among
the slimy rocks, and depositing her, with only wet shoes, on the shore,
Mr. King shared it, and gained the title of “Life-preserver.” The
adventure ended with a laugh.

The day after the discovery and exploration of Narragansett, Mr. King
spent the morning with his cousin at the Casino. It was so pleasant
that he wondered he had not gone there oftener, and that so few people
frequented it. Was it that the cottagers were too strong for the Casino
also, which was built for the recreation of the cottagers, and that they
found when it came to the test that they could not with comfort come
into any sort of contact with popular life? It is not large, but no
summer resort in Europe has a prettier place for lounging and reunion.
None have such an air of refinement and exclusiveness. Indeed, one of
the chief attractions and entertainments in the foreign casinos and
conversation-halls is the mingling there of all sorts of peoples,
and the animation arising from diversity of conditions. This popular
commingling in pleasure resorts is safe enough in aristocratic
countries, but it will not answer in a republic.

The Newport Casino is in the nature of a club of the best society. The
building and grounds express the most refined taste. Exteriorly the
house is a long, low Queen Anne cottage, with brilliant shops on the
ground-floor, and above, behind the wooded balconies, is the clubroom.
The tint of the shingled front is brown, and all the colors are low and
blended. Within, the court is a mediaeval surprise. It is a miniature
castle, such as might serve for an opera scene. An extension of
the galleries, an ombre, completes the circle around the plot of
close-clipped green turf. The house itself is all balconies, galleries,
odd windows half overgrown and hidden by ivy, and a large gilt
clock-face adds a touch of piquancy to the antique charm of the facade.
Beyond the first court is a more spacious and less artificial lawn,
set with fine trees, and at the bottom of it is the brown building
containing ballroom and theatre, bowling-alley and closed tennis-court,
and at an angle with the second lawn is a pretty field for lawn-tennis.
Here the tournaments are held, and on these occasions, and on ball
nights, the Casino is thronged.

If the Casino is then so exclusive, why is it not more used as a
rendezvous and lounging-place? Alas! it must be admitted that it is not
exclusive. By an astonishing concession in the organization any person
can gain admittance by paying the sum of fifty cents. This tax is
sufficient to exclude the deserving poor, but it is only an inducement
to the vulgar rich, and it is even broken down by the prodigal
excursionist, who commonly sets out from home with the intention of
being reckless for one day. It is easy to see, therefore, why the charm
of this delightful place is tarnished.

The band was playing this morning--not rink music--when Mrs. Glow and
King entered and took chairs on the ombre. It was a very pretty scene;
more people were present than usual of a morning. Groups of half a
dozen had drawn chairs together here and there, and were chatting and
laughing; two or three exceedingly well-preserved old bachelors, in the
smart rough morning suits of the period, were entertaining their lady
friends with club and horse talk; several old gentlemen were reading
newspapers; and there were some dowager-looking mammas, and seated by
them their cold, beautiful, high-bred daughters, who wore their visible
exclusiveness like a garment, and contrasted with some other young
ladies who were promenading with English-looking young men in flannel
suits, who might be described as lawn-tennis young ladies conscious
of being in the mode, but wanting the indescribable atmosphere of
high-breeding. Doubtless the most interesting persons to the student
of human life were the young fellows in lawn-tennis suits. They had the
languid air which is so attractive at their age, of having found out
life, and decided that it is a bore. Nothing is worth making an exertion
about, not even pleasure. They had come, one could see, to a just
appreciation of their value in life, and understood quite well
the social manners of the mammas and girls in whose company they
condescended to dawdle and make, languidly, cynical observations. They
had, in truth, the manner of playing at fashion and elegance as in
a stage comedy. King could not help thinking there was something
theatrical about them altogether, and he fancied that when he saw them
in their “traps” on the Avenue they were going through the motions for
show and not for enjoyment. Probably King was mistaken in all this,
having been abroad so long that he did not understand the evolution of
the American gilded youth.

In a pause of the music Mrs. Bartlett Glow and Mr. King were standing
with a group near the steps that led down to the inner lawn. Among them
were the Postlethwaite girls, whose beauty and audacity made such a
sensation in Washington last winter. They were bantering Mr. King about
his Narragansett excursion, his cousin having maliciously given the
party a hint of his encounter with the tide at the Pier... Just at this
moment, happening to glance across the lawn, he saw the Bensons coming
towards the steps, Mrs. Benson waddling over the grass and beaming
towards the group, Mr. Benson carrying her shawl and looking as if he
had been hired by the day, and Irene listlessly following. Mrs. Glow saw
them at the same moment, but gave no other sign of her knowledge than by
striking into the banter with more animation. Mr. King intended at once
to detach himself and advance to meet the Bensons. But he could
not rudely break away from the unfinished sentence of the younger
Postlethwaite girl, and the instant that was concluded, as luck would
have it, an elderly lady joined the group, and Mrs. Glow went through
the formal ceremony of introducing King to her. He hardly knew how it
happened, only that he made a hasty bow to the Bensons as he was shaking
hands with the ceremonious old lady, and they had gone to the door
of exit. He gave a little start as if to follow them, which Mrs. Glow
noticed with a laugh and the remark, “You can catch them if you run,”
 and then he weakly submitted to his fate. After all, it was only an
accident which would hardly need a word of explanation. But what Irene
saw was this: a distant nod from Mrs. Glow, a cool survey and stare from
the Postlethwaite girls, and the failure of Mr. King to recognize his
friends any further than by an indifferent bow as he turned to speak to
another lady. In the raw state of her sensitiveness she felt all this as
a terrible and perhaps intended humiliation.

King did not return to the hotel till evening, and then he sent up his
card to the Bensons. Word came back that the ladies were packing, and
must be excused. He stood at the office desk and wrote a hasty note to
Irene, attempting an explanation of what might seem to her a rudeness,
and asked that he might see her a moment. And then he paced the corridor
waiting for a reply. In his impatience the fifteen minutes that he
waited seemed an hour. Then a bell-boy handed him this note:

   “MY DEAR MR. KING,--No explanation whatever was needed. We never
   shall forget your kindness. Good-by.
                       IRENE BENSON”

He folded the note carefully and put it in his breast pocket, took it
out and reread it, lingering over the fine and dainty signature, put it
back again, and walked out upon the piazza. It was a divine night,
soft and sweet-scented, and all the rustling trees were luminous in the
electric light. From a window opening upon a balcony overhead came the
clear notes of a barytone voice enunciating the oldfashioned words of an
English ballad, the refrain of which expressed hopeless separation.

The eastern coast, with its ragged outline of bays, headlands,
indentations, islands, capes, and sand-spits, from Watch Hill, a
favorite breezy resort, to Mount Desert, presents an almost continual
chain of hotels and summer cottages. In fact, the same may be said of
the whole Atlantic front from Mount Desert down to Cape May. It is to
the traveler an amazing spectacle. The American people can no longer
be reproached for not taking any summer recreation. The amount of money
invested to meet the requirements of this vacation idleness is enormous.
When one is on the coast in July or August it seems as if the whole
fifty millions of people had come down to lie on the rocks, wade in the
sand, and dip into the sea. But this is not the case. These crowds are
only a fringe of the pleasure-seeking population. In all the mountain
regions from North Carolina to the Adirondacks and the White Hills,
along the St. Lawrence and the lakes away up to the Northwest, in every
elevated village, on every mountain-side, about every pond, lake,
and clear stream, in the wilderness and the secluded farmhouse, one
encounters the traveler, the summer boarder, the vacation idler, one is
scarcely out of sight of the American flag flying over a summer resort.
In no other nation, probably, is there such a general summer hejira, no
other offers on such a vast scale such a variety of entertainment, and
it is needless to say that history presents no parallel to this general
movement of a people for a summer outing. Yet it is no doubt true that
statistics, which always upset a broad generous statement such as I have
made, would show that the majority of people stay at home in the summer,
and it is undeniable that the vexing question for everybody is where to
go in July and August.

But there are resorts suited to all tastes, and to the economical as
well as to the extravagant. Perhaps the strongest impression one has
in visiting the various watering-places in the summer-time, is that the
multitudes of every-day folk are abroad in search of enjoyment. On the
New Bedford boat for Martha's Vineyard our little party of tourists
sailed quite away from Newport life--Stanhope with mingled depression
and relief, the artist with some shrinking from contact with anything
common, while Marion stood upon the bow beside her uncle, inhaling the
salt breeze, regarding the lovely fleeting shores, her cheeks glowing
and her eyes sparkling with enjoyment. The passengers and scene,
Stanhope was thinking, were typically New England, until the boat made a
landing at Naushon Island, when he was reminded somehow of Scotland,
as much perhaps by the wild furzy appearance of the island as by the
“gentle-folks” who went ashore.

The boat lingered for the further disembarkation of a number of horses
and carriages, with a piano and a cow. There was a farmer's lodge at the
landing, and over the rocks and amid the trees the picturesque roof
of the villa of the sole proprietor of the island appeared, and gave a
feudal aspect to the domain. The sweet grass affords good picking for
sheep, and besides the sheep the owner raises deer, which are destined
to be chased and shot in the autumn.

The artist noted that there were several distinct types of women on
board, besides the common, straight-waisted, flat-chested variety. One
girl who was alone, with a city air, a neat, firm figure, in a traveling
suit of elegant simplicity, was fond of taking attitudes about the
rails, and watching the effect produced on the spectators. There was
a blue-eyed, sharp-faced, rather loose-jointed young girl, who had the
manner of being familiar with the boat, and talked readily and freely
with anybody, keeping an eye occasionally on her sister of eight years,
a child with a serious little face in a poke-bonnet, who used the
language of a young lady of sixteen, and seemed also abundantly able to
take care of herself. What this mite of a child wants of all things, she
confesses, is a pug-faced dog. Presently she sees one come on board in
the arms of a young lady at Wood's Holl. “No,” she says, “I won't ask
her for it; the lady wouldn't give it to me, and I wouldn't waste
my breath;” but she draws near to the dog, and regards it with rapt
attention. The owner of the dog is a very pretty black-eyed girl
with banged hair, who prattles about herself and her dog with perfect
freedom. She is staying at Cottage City, lives at Worcester, has been
up to Boston to meet and bring down her dog, without which she couldn't
live another minute. “Perhaps,” she says, “you know Dr. Ridgerton, in
Worcester; he's my brother. Don't you know him? He's a chiropodist.”

These girls are all types of the skating-rink--an institution which is
beginning to express itself in American manners.

The band was playing on the pier when the steamer landed at Cottage City
(or Oak Bluff, as it was formerly called), and the pier and the gallery
leading to it were crowded with spectators, mostly women a pleasing
mingling of the skating-rink and sewing-circle varieties--and gayety
was apparently about setting in with the dusk. The rink and the ground
opposite the hotel were in full tilt. After supper King and Forbes took
a cursory view of this strange encampment, walking through the streets
of fantastic tiny cottages among the scrub oaks, and saw something of
family life in the painted little boxes, whose wide-open front
doors gave to view the whole domestic economy, including the bed,
centre-table, and melodeon. They strolled also on the elevated plank
promenade by the beach, encountering now and then a couple enjoying the
lovely night. Music abounded. The circus-pumping strains burst out of
the rink, calling to a gay and perhaps dissolute life. The band in the
nearly empty hotel parlor, in a mournful mood, was wooing the guests who
did not come to a soothing tune, something like China--“Why do we mourn
departed friends?” A procession of lasses coming up the broad walk,
advancing out of the shadows of night, was heard afar off as the
stalwart singers strode on, chanting in high nasal voices that lovely
hymn, which seems to suit the rink as well as the night promenade and
the campmeeting:

   “We shall me--um um--we shall me-eet, me-eet--um um
    --we shall meet,
   In the sweet by-am-by, by-am-by-um um-by-am-by.
   On the bu-u-u-u--on the bu-u-u-u--on the bu-te-ful shore.”

In the morning this fairy-like settlement, with its flimsy and eccentric
architecture, took on more the appearance of reality. The season was
late, as usual, and the hotels were still waiting for the crowds that
seem to prefer to be late and make a rushing carnival of August, but the
tiny cottages were nearly all occupied. At 10 A.M. the band was playing
in the three-story pagoda sort of tower at the bathing-place, and the
three stories were crowded with female spectators. Below, under the
bank, is a long array of bath-houses, and the shallow water was alive
with floundering and screaming bathers. Anchored a little out was a
raft, from which men and boys and a few venturesome girls were diving,
displaying the human form in graceful curves. The crowd was an immensely
good-humored one, and enjoyed itself. The sexes mingled together in the
water, and nothing thought of it, as old Pepys would have said, although
many of the tightly-fitting costumes left less to the imagination than
would have been desired by a poet describing the scene as a phase of the
'comedie humaine.' The band, having played out its hour, trudged back to
the hotel pier to toot while the noon steamboat landed its passengers,
in order to impress the new arrivals with the mad joyousness of the
place. The crowd gathered on the high gallery at the end of the pier
added to this effect of reckless holiday enjoyment. Miss Lamont was
infected with this gayety, and took a great deal of interest in this
peripatetic band, which was playing again on the hotel piazza before
dinner, with a sort of mechanical hilariousness. The rink band opposite
kept up a lively competition, grinding out go-round music, imparting, if
one may say so, a glamour to existence. The band is on hand at the pier
at four o'clock to toot again, and presently off, tramping to some other
hotel to satisfy the serious pleasure of this people.

While Mr. King could not help wondering how all this curious life would
strike Irene--he put his lonesomeness and longing in this way--and what
she would say about it, he endeavored to divert his mind by a study of
the conditions, and by some philosophizing on the change that had come
over American summer life within a few years. In his investigations he
was assisted by Mr. De Long, to whom this social life was absolutely
new, and who was disposed to regard it as peculiarly Yankee--the
staid dissipation of a serious-minded people. King, looking at it
more broadly, found this pasteboard city by the sea one of the most
interesting developments of American life. The original nucleus was
the Methodist camp-meeting, which, in the season, brought here twenty
thousand to thirty thousand people at a time, who camped and picnicked
in a somewhat primitive style. Gradually the people who came here
ostensibly for religious exercises made a longer and more permanent
occupation, and, without losing its ephemeral character, the place
grew and demanded more substantial accommodations. The spot is very
attractive. Although the shore looks to the east, and does not get the
prevailing southern breeze, and the beach has little surf, both water
and air are mild, the bathing is safe and agreeable, and the view of the
illimitable sea dotted with sails and fishing-boats is always pleasing.
A crowd begets a crowd, and soon the world's people made a city larger
than the original one, and still more fantastic, by the aid of paint and
the jigsaw. The tent, however, is the type of all the dwelling-houses.
The hotels, restaurants, and shops follow the usual order of flamboyant
seaside architecture. After a time the Baptists established a camp,
ground on the bluffs on the opposite side of the inlet. The world's
people brought in the commercial element in the way of fancy shops for
the sale of all manner of cheap and bizarre “notions,” and introduced
the common amusements. And so, although the camp-meetings do not begin
till late in August, this city of play-houses is occupied the summer
long. The shops and shows represent the taste of the million,
and although there is a similarity in all these popular coast
watering-places, each has a characteristic of its own. The foreigner has
a considerable opportunity of studying family life, whether he lounges
through the narrow, sometimes circular, streets by night, when it
appears like a fairy encampment, or by daylight, when there is no
illusion. It seems to be a point of etiquette to show as much of the
interiors as possible, and one can learn something of cooking and
bed-making and mending, and the art of doing up the back hair. The
photographer revels here in pictorial opportunities. The pictures of
these bizarre cottages, with the family and friends seated in front,
show very serious groups. One of the Tabernacle--a vast iron hood or
dome erected over rows of benches that will seat two or three thousand
people--represents the building when it is packed with an audience
intent upon the preacher. Most of the faces are of a grave, severe type,
plain and good, of the sort of people ready to die for a notion. The
impression of these photographs is that these people abandon themselves
soberly to the pleasures of the sea and of this packed, gregarious life,
and get solid enjoyment out of their recreation.

Here, as elsewhere on the coast, the greater part of the population
consists of women and children, and the young ladies complain of the
absence of men--and, indeed, something is desirable in society besides
the superannuated and the boys in round-abouts.

The artist and Miss Lamont, in search of the picturesque, had the
courage, although the thermometer was in the humor to climb up to ninety
degrees, to explore the Baptist encampment. They were not rewarded by
anything new except at the landing, where, behind the bath-houses, the
bathing suits were hung out to dry, and presented a comical spectacle,
the humor of which seemed to be lost upon all except themselves. It
was such a caricature of humanity! The suits hanging upon the line and
distended by the wind presented the appearance of headless, bloated
forms, fat men and fat women kicking in the breeze, and vainly trying
to climb over the line. It was probably merely fancy, but they declared
that these images seemed larger, more bloated, and much livelier
than those displayed on the Cottage City side. When travelers can be
entertained by trifles of this kind it shows that there is an absence of
more serious amusement. And, indeed, although people were not wanting,
and music was in the air, and the bicycle and tricycle stable was well
patronized by men and women, and the noon bathing was well attended, it
was evident that the life of Cottage City was not in full swing by the
middle of July.

The morning on which our tourists took the steamer for Wood's Holl
the sea lay shimmering in the heat, only stirred a little by the land
breeze, and it needed all the invigoration of the short ocean voyage to
brace them up for the intolerably hot and dusty ride in the cars through
the sandy part of Massachusetts. So long as the train kept by the
indented shore the route was fairly picturesque; all along Buzzard Bay
and Onset Bay and Monument Beach little cottages, gay with paint and
fantastic saw-work explained, in a measure, the design of Providence
in permitting this part of the world to be discovered; but the sandy
interior had to be reconciled to the deeper divine intention by a
trial of patience and the cultivation of the heroic virtues evoked by a
struggle for existence, of fitting men and women for a better country.
The travelers were confirmed, however, in their theory of the effect of
a sandy country upon the human figure. This is not a juicy land, if
the expression can be tolerated, any more than the sandy parts of
New Jersey, and its unsympathetic dryness is favorable to the
production--one can hardly say development of the lean, enduring,
flat-chested, and angular style of woman.

In order to reach Plymouth a wait of a couple of hours was necessary at
one of the sleepy but historic villages. There was here no tavern, no
restaurant, and nobody appeared to have any license to sell anything for
the refreshment of the travelers. But at some distance from the station,
in a two-roomed dwelling-house, a good woman was found who was willing
to cook a meal of victuals, as she explained, and a sign on her front
door attested, she had a right to do. What was at the bottom of the
local prejudice against letting the wayfaring man have anything to eat
and drink, the party could not ascertain, but the defiant air of the
woman revealed the fact that there was such a prejudice. She was a
noble, robust, gigantic specimen of her sex, well formed, strong as an
ox, with a resolute jaw, and she talked, through tightly-closed teeth,
in an aggressive manner. Dinner was ordered, and the party strolled
about the village pending its preparation; but it was not ready when
they returned. “I ain't goin' to cook no victuals,” the woman explained,
not ungraciously, “till I know folks is goin' to eat it.” Knowledge of
the world had made her justly cautious. She intended to set out a good
meal, and she had the true housewife's desire that it should be eaten,
that there should be enough of it, and that the guests should like it.
When she waited on the table she displayed a pair of arms that would
discourage any approach to familiarity, and disincline a timid person to
ask twice for pie; but in point of fact, as soon as the party became her
bona-fide guests, she was royally hospitable, and only displayed anxiety
lest they should not eat enough.

“I like folks to be up and down and square,” she began saying, as she
vigilantly watched the effect of her culinary skill upon the awed little
party. “Yes, I've got a regular hotel license; you bet I have. There's
been folks lawed in this town for sellin' a meal of victuals and not
having one. I ain't goin' to be taken in by anybody. I warn't raised in
New Hampshire to be scared by these Massachusetts folks. No, I hain't
got a girl now. I had one a spell, but I'd rather do my own work. You
never knew what a girl was doin' or would do. After she'd left I found
a broken plate tucked into the ash-barrel. Sho! you can't depend on a
girl. Yes, I've got a husband. It's easier to manage him. Well, I tell
you a husband is better than a girl. When you tell him to do anything,
you know it's going to be done. He's always about, never loafin' round;
he can take right hold and wash dishes, and fetch water, and anything.”

King went into the kitchen after dinner and saw this model husband, who
had the faculty of making himself generally useful, holding a baby on
one arm, and stirring something in a pot on the stove with the other. He
looked hot but resigned. There has been so much said about the position
of men in Massachusetts that the travelers were glad of this evidence
that husbands are beginning to be appreciated. Under proper training
they are acknowledged to be “better than girls.”

It was late afternoon when they reached the quiet haven of Plymouth--a
place where it is apparently always afternoon, a place of memory and
reminiscences, where the whole effort of the population is to hear and
to tell some old thing. As the railway ends there, there is no danger
of being carried beyond, and the train slowly ceases motion, and stands
still in the midst of a great and welcome silence. Peace fell upon the
travelers like a garment, and although they had as much difficulty
in landing their baggage as the early Pilgrims had in getting theirs
ashore, the circumstance was not able to disquiet them much. It seemed
natural that their trunks should go astray on some of the inextricably
interlocked and branching railways, and they had no doubt that when they
had made the tour of the State they would be discharged, as they finally
were, into this cul-de-sac.

The Pilgrims have made so much noise in the world, and so powerfully
affected the continent, that our tourists were surprised to find they
had landed in such a quiet place, and that the spirit they have left
behind them is one of such tranquillity. The village has a charm all its
own. Many of the houses are old-fashioned and square, some with colonial
doors and porches, irregularly aligned on the main street, which is
arched by ancient and stately elms. In the spacious door-yards the
lindens have had room and time to expand, and in the beds of bloom the
flowers, if not the very ones that our grandmothers planted, are the
sorts that they loved. Showing that the town has grown in sympathy with
human needs and eccentricities, and is not the work of a surveyor, the
streets are irregular, forming picturesque angles and open spaces.

Nothing could be imagined in greater contrast to a Western town, and
a good part of the satisfaction our tourists experienced was in the
absence of anything Western or “Queen Anne” in the architecture.

In the Pilgrim Hall--a stone structure with an incongruous
wooden-pillared front--they came into the very presence of the early
worthies, saw their portraits on the walls, sat in their chairs, admired
the solidity of their shoes, and imbued themselves with the spirit of
the relics of their heroic, uncomfortable lives. In the town there was
nothing to disturb the serenity of mind acquired by this communion.
The Puritan interdict of unseemly excitement still prevailed, and the
streets were silent; the artist, who could compare it with the placidity
of Holland towns, declared that he never walked in a village so silent;
there was no loud talking; and even the children played without noise,
like little Pilgrims... God bless such children, and increase their
numbers! It might have been the approach of Sunday--if Sunday is still
regarded in eastern Massachusetts--that caused this hush, for it was now
towards sunset on Saturday, and the inhabitants were washing the fronts
of the houses with the hose, showing how cleanliness is next to silence.

Possessed with the spirit of peace, our tourists, whose souls had been
vexed with the passions of many watering-places, walked down Leyden
Street (the first that was laid out), saw the site of the first house,
and turned round Carver Street, walking lingeringly, so as not to break
the spell, out upon the hill-Cole's Hill--where the dead during the
first fearful winter were buried. This has been converted into a
beautiful esplanade, grassed and graveled and furnished with seats, and
overlooks the old wharves, some coal schooners, and shabby buildings, on
one of which is a sign informing the reckless that they can obtain there
clam-chowder and ice-cream, and the ugly, heavy granite canopy erected
over the “Rock.” No reverent person can see this rock for the first time
without a thrill of excitement. It has the date of 1620 cut in it, and
it is a good deal cracked and patched up, as if it had been much landed
on, but there it is, and there it will remain a witness to a great
historic event, unless somebody takes a notion to cart it off uptown
again. It is said to rest on another rock, of which it formed a part
before its unfortunate journey, and that lower rock as everybody knows,
rests upon the immutable principle of self-government. The stone lies
too far from the water to enable anybody to land on it now, and it is
protected from vandalism by an iron grating. The sentiment of the hour
was disturbed by the advent of the members of a baseball nine, who
wondered why the Pilgrims did not land on the wharf, and, while
thrusting their feet through the grating in a commendable desire
to touch the sacred rock, expressed a doubt whether the feet of the
Pilgrims were small enough to slip through the grating and land on
the stone. It seems that there is nothing safe from the irreverence of
American youth.

Has any other coast town besides Plymouth had the good sense and taste
to utilize such an elevation by the water-side as an esplanade? It is
a most charming feature of the village, and gives it what we call a
foreign air. It was very lovely in the afterglow and at moonrise. Staid
citizens with their families occupied the benches, groups were chatting
under the spreading linden-tree at the north entrance, and young maidens
in white muslin promenaded, looking seaward, as was the wont of Puritan
maidens, watching a receding or coming Mayflower. But there was no loud
talking, no laughter, no outbursts of merriment from the children, all
ready to be transplanted to the Puritan heaven! It was high tide, and
all the bay was silvery with a tinge of color from the glowing sky.
The long, curved sand-spit-which was heavily wooded when the Pilgrims
landed-was silvery also, and upon its northern tip glowed the white
sparkle in the lighthouse like the evening-star. To the north, over
the smooth pink water speckled with white sails, rose Captain Hill, in
Duxbury, bearing the monument to Miles Standish. Clarke's Island (where
the Pilgrims heard a sermon on the first Sunday), Saguish Point, and
Gurnett Headland (showing now twin white lights) appear like a long
island intersected by thin lines of blue water. The effect of these
ribbons of alternate sand and water, of the lights and the ocean (or
Great Bay) beyond, was exquisite.

Even the unobtrusive tavern at the rear of the esplanade, ancient,
feebly lighted, and inviting, added something to the picturesqueness of
the scene. The old tree by the gate--an English linden--illuminated
by the street lamps and the moon, had a mysterious appearance, and the
tourists were not surprised to learn that it has a romantic history. The
story is that the twig or sapling from which it grew was brought over
from England by a lover as a present to his mistress, that the lovers
quarreled almost immediately, that the girl in a pet threw it out of
the window when she sent her lover out of the door, and that another man
picked it up and planted it where it now grows. The legend provokes a
good many questions. One would like to know whether this was the first
case of female rebellion in Massachusetts against the common-law right
of a man to correct a woman with a stick not thicker than his little
finger--a rebellion which has resulted in the position of man as the
tourists saw him where the New Hampshire Amazon gave them a meal of
victuals; and whether the girl married the man who planted the twig,
and, if so, whether he did not regret that he had not kept it by him.

This is a world of illusions. By daylight, when the tide was out, the
pretty silver bay of the night before was a mud flat, and the tourists,
looking over it from Monument Hill, lost some of their respect for the
Pilgrim sagacity in selecting a landing-place. They had ascended the
hill for a nearer view of the monument, King with a reverent wish to
read the name of his Mayflower ancestor on the tablet, the others in
a spirit of cold, New York criticism, for they thought the structure,
which is still unfinished, would look uglier near at hand than at a
distance. And it does. It is a pile of granite masonry surmounted by
symbolic figures.

“It is such an unsympathetic, tasteless-looking thing!” said Miss
Lamont.

“Do you think it is the worst in the country?”

“I wouldn't like to say that,” replied the artist, “when the competition
in this direction is so lively. But just look at the drawing” (holding
up his pencil with which he had intended to sketch it). “If it were
quaint, now, or rude, or archaic, it might be in keeping, but bad
drawing is just vulgar. I should think it had been designed by a
carpenter, and executed by a stone-mason.”

“Yes,” said the little Lamont, who always fell in with the most
abominable opinions the artist expressed; “it ought to have been made of
wood, and painted and sanded.”

“You will please remember,” mildly suggested King, who had found the
name he was in search of, “that you are trampling on my ancestral
sensibilities, as might be expected of those who have no ancestors who
ever landed or ever were buried anywhere in particular. I look at the
commemorative spirit rather than the execution of the monument.”

“So do I,” retorted the girl; “and if the Pilgrims landed in such a
vulgar, ostentatious spirit as this, I'm glad my name is not on the
tablet.”

The party were in a better mood when they had climbed up Burial Hill,
back of the meeting-house, and sat down on one of the convenient benches
amid the ancient gravestones, and looked upon the wide and magnificent
prospect. A soft summer wind waved a little the long gray grass of
the ancient resting-place, and seemed to whisper peace to the weary
generation that lay there. What struggles, what heroisms, the names on
the stones recalled! Here had stood the first fort of 1620, and here the
watchtower of 1642, from the top of which the warder espied the lurking
savage, or hailed the expected ship from England. How much of history
this view recalled, and what pathos of human life these graves
made real. Read the names of those buried a couple of centuries
ago--captains, elders, ministers, governors, wives well beloved,
children a span long, maidens in the blush of womanhood--half the tender
inscriptions are illegible; the stones are broken, sunk, slanting to
fall. What a pitiful attempt to keep the world mindful of the departed!




VI. MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, ISLES OF SHOALS

Mr. Stanhope King was not in very good spirits. Even Boston did not
make him cheerful. He was half annoyed to see the artist and Miss Lamont
drifting along in such laughing good-humor with the world, as if
a summer holiday was just a holiday without any consequences or
responsibilities. It was to him a serious affair ever since that
unsatisfactory note from Miss Benson; somehow the summer had lost its
sparkle. And yet was it not preposterous that a girl, just a single
girl, should have the power to change for a man the aspect of a whole
coast-by her presence to make it iridescent with beauty, and by her
absence to take all the life out of it? And a simple girl from Ohio!
She was not by any means the prettiest girl in the Newport Casino that
morning, but it was her figure that he remembered, and it was the look
of hurt sensibility in her eyes that stayed with him. He resented the
attitude of the Casino towards her, and he hated himself for his share
in it. He would write to her..... He composed letter after letter in his
mind, which he did not put on paper. How many millions of letters are
composed in this way! It is a favorite occupation of imaginative people;
and as they say that no thoughts or mental impressions are ever lost,
but are all registered--made, as it were, on a “dry-plate,” to be
developed hereafter--what a vast correspondence must be lying in the
next world, in the Dead-letter Office there, waiting for the persons to
whom it is addressed, who will all receive it and read it some day! How
unpleasant and absurd it will be to read, much of it! I intend to be
careful, for my part, about composing letters of this sort hereafter.
Irene, I dare say, will find a great many of them from Mr. King, thought
out in those days. But he mailed none of them to her. What should he
say? Should he tell her that he didn't mind if her parents were what
Mrs. Bartlett Glow called “impossible”? If he attempted any explanation,
would it not involve the offensive supposition that his social rank
was different from hers? Even if he convinced her that he recognized no
caste in American society, what could remove from her mind the somewhat
morbid impression that her education had put her in a false position?
His love probably could not shield her from mortification in a society
which, though indefinable in its limits and code, is an entity more
vividly felt than the government of the United States.

“Don't you think the whole social atmosphere has changed,” Miss
Lamont suddenly asked, as they were running along in the train towards
Manchester-by-the-Sea, “since we got north of Boston? I seem to find
it so. Don't you think it's more refined, and, don't you know, sort of
cultivated, and subdued, and Boston? You notice the gentlemen who get
out at all these stations, to go to their country-houses, how highly
civilized they look, and ineffably respectable and intellectual, all
of them presidents of colleges, and substantial bank directors, and
possible ambassadors, and of a social cult (isn't that the word?)
uniting brains and gentle manners.”

“You must have been reading the Boston newspapers; you have hit the idea
prevalent in these parts, at any rate. I was, however, reminded myself
of an afternoon train out of London, say into Surrey, on which you are
apt to encounter about as high a type of civilized men as anywhere.”

“And you think this is different from a train out of New York?” asked
the artist.

“Yes. New York is more mixed. No one train has this kind of tone. You
see there more of the broker type and politician type, smarter apparel
and nervous manners, but, dear me, not this high moral and intellectual
respectability.”

“Well,” said the artist, “I'm changing my mind about this country. I
didn't expect so much variety. I thought that all the watering-places
would be pretty much alike, and that we should see the same people
everywhere. But the people are quite as varied as the scenery.”

“There you touch a deep question--the refining or the vulgarizing
influence of man upon nature, and the opposite. Now, did the summer
Bostonians make this coast refined, or did this coast refine the
Bostonians who summer here?”

“Well, this is primarily an artistic coast; I feel the influence of
it; there is a refined beauty in all the lines, and residents have not
vulgarized it much. But I wonder what Boston could have done for the
Jersey coast?”

In the midst of this high and useless conversation they came to the
Masconomo House, a sort of concession, in this region of noble villas
and private parks, to the popular desire to get to the sea. It is a
long, low house, with very broad passages below and above, which give
lightness and cheerfulness to the interior, and each of the four corners
of the entrance hall has a fireplace. The pillars of the front and back
piazzas are pine stems stained, with the natural branches cut in unequal
lengths, and look like the stumps for the bears to climb in the pit at
Berne. Set up originally with the bark on, the worms worked underneath
it in secret, at a novel sort of decoration, until the bark came off and
exposed the stems most beautifully vermiculated, giving the effect of
fine carving. Back of the house a meadow slopes down to a little beach
in a curved bay that has rocky headlands, and is defended in part by
islands of rock. The whole aspect of the place is peaceful. The hotel
does not assert itself very loudly, and if occasionally transient guests
appear with flash manners, they do not affect the general tone of the
region.

One finds, indeed, nature and social life happily blended, the
exclusiveness being rather protective than offensive. The special charm
of this piece of coast is that it is bold, much broken and indented,
precipices fronting the waves, promontories jutting out, high rocky
points commanding extensive views, wild and picturesque, and yet
softened by color and graceful shore lines, and the forest comes down
to the edge of the sea. And the occupants have heightened rather than
lessened this picturesqueness by adapting their villas to a certain
extent to the rocks and inequalities in color and form, and by means of
roads, allies, and vistas transforming the region into a lovely park.

Here, as at Newport, is cottage life, but the contrast of the two places
is immense. There is here no attempt at any assembly or congregated
gayety or display. One would hesitate to say that the drives here have
more beauty, but they have more variety. They seem endless, through
odorous pine woods and shady lanes, by private roads among beautiful
villas and exquisite grounds, with evidences everywhere of wealth to
be sure, but of individual taste and refinement. How sweet and cool are
these winding ways in the wonderful woods, overrun with vegetation, the
bayberry, the sweet-fern, the wild roses, wood-lilies, and ferns! and it
is ever a fresh surprise at a turn to find one's self so near the sea,
and to open out an entrancing coast view, to emerge upon a
promontory and a sight of summer isles, of lighthouses, cottages,
villages--Marblehead, Salem, Beverly. What a lovely coast! and how
wealth and culture have set their seal on it.

It possesses essentially the same character to the north, although
the shore is occasionally higher and bolder, as at the picturesque
promontory of Magnolia, and Cape Ann exhibits more of the hotel and
popular life. But to live in one's own cottage, to choose his calling
and dining acquaintances, to make the long season contribute something
to cultivation in literature, art, music--to live, in short, rather more
for one's self than for society--seems the increasing tendency of the
men of fortune who can afford to pay as much for an acre of rock and
sand at Manchester as would build a decent house elsewhere. The tourist
does not complain of this, and is grateful that individuality has
expressed itself in the great variety of lovely homes, in cottages very
different from those on the Jersey coast, showing more invention, and
good in form and color.

There are New-Yorkers at Manchester, and Bostonians at Newport; but who
was it that said New York expresses itself at Newport, and Boston at
Manchester and kindred coast settlements? This may be only fancy. Where
intellectual life keeps pace with the accumulation of wealth, society is
likely to be more natural, simpler, less tied to artificial rules,
than where wealth runs ahead. It happens that the quiet social life of
Beverly, Manchester, and that region is delightful, although it is a
home rather than a public life. Nowhere else at dinner and at the chance
evening musicale is the foreigner more likely to meet sensible men who
are good talkers, brilliant and witty women who have the gift of being
entertaining, and to have the events of the day and the social and
political problems more cleverly discussed. What is the good of wealth
if it does not bring one back to freedom, and the ability to live
naturally and to indulge the finer tastes in vacation-time?

After all, King reflected, as the party were on their way to the Isles
of Shoals, what was it that had most impressed him at Manchester? Was it
not an evening spent in a cottage amid the rocks, close by the water,
in the company of charming people? To be sure, there were the magical
reflection of the moonlight and the bay, the points of light from the
cottages on the rocky shore, the hum and swell of the sea, and all the
mystery of the shadowy headlands; but this was only a congenial setting
for the music, the witty talk, the free play of intellectual badinage,
and seriousness, and the simple human cordiality that were worth all the
rest.

What a kaleidoscope it is, this summer travel, and what an
entertainment, if the tourist can only keep his “impression plates”
 fresh to take the new scenes, and not sink into the state of
chronic grumbling at hotels and minor discomforts! An interview at
a ticket-office, a whirl of an hour on the rails, and to Portsmouth,
anchored yet to the colonial times by a few old houses, and resisting
with its respectable provincialism the encroachments of modern
smartness, and the sleepy wharf in the sleepy harbor, where the little
steamer is obligingly waiting for the last passenger, for the very
last woman, running with a bandbox in one hand, and dragging a jerked,
fretting child by the other hand, to make the hour's voyage to the Isles
of Shoals.

(The shrewd reader objects to the bandbox as an anachronism: it is
no longer used. If I were writing a novel, instead of a veracious
chronicle, I should not have introduced it, for it is an anachronism.
But I was powerless, as a mere narrator, to prevent the woman coming
aboard with her bandbox. No one but a trained novelist can make a
long-striding, resolute, down-East woman conform to his notions of
conduct and fashion.)

If a young gentleman were in love, and the object of his adoration were
beside him, he could not have chosen a lovelier day nor a prettier scene
than this in which to indulge his happiness; and if he were in love, and
the object absent, he could scarcely find a situation fitter to nurse
his tender sentiment. Doubtless there is a stage in love when scenery of
the very best quality becomes inoperative. There was a couple on board
seated in front of the pilot-house, who let the steamer float along the
pretty, long, landlocked harbor, past the Kittery Navy-yard, and out
upon the blue sea, without taking the least notice of anything but each
other. They were on a voyage of their own, Heaven help them! probably
without any chart, a voyage of discovery, just as fresh and surprising
as if they were the first who ever took it. It made no difference to
them that there was a personally conducted excursion party on board,
going, they said, to the Oceanic House on Star Island, who had out their
maps and guide-books and opera-glasses, and wrung the last drop of the
cost of their tickets out of every foot of the scenery. Perhaps it was
to King a more sentimental journey than to anybody else, because he
invoked his memory and his imagination, and as the lovely shores opened
or fell away behind the steamer in ever-shifting forms of beauty, the
scene was in harmony with both his hope and his longing. As to Marion
and the artist, they freely appropriated and enjoyed it. So that
mediaeval structure, all tower, growing out of the rock, is Stedman's
Castle--just like him, to let his art spring out of nature in that way.
And that is the famous Kittery Navy-yard!

“What do they do there, uncle?” asked the girl, after scanning the place
in search of dry-docks and vessels and the usual accompaniments of a
navy-yard.

“Oh, they make 'repairs,' principally just before an election. It is
very busy then.”

“What sort of repairs?”

“Why, political repairs; they call them naval in the department. They
are always getting appropriations for them. I suppose that this country
is better off for naval repairs than any other country in the world.”

“And they are done here?”

“No; they are done in the department. Here is where the voters are. You
see, we have a political navy. It costs about as much as those navies
that have ships and guns, but it is more in accord with the peaceful
spirit of the age. Did you never hear of the leading case of 'repairs'
of a government vessel here at Kittery? The 'repairs' were all done
here, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the vessel lay all the time at
Portsmouth, Virginia. How should the department know that there were two
places of the same name? It usually intends to have 'repairs' and the
vessel in the same navy-yard.”

The steamer was gliding along over smooth water towards the seven
blessed isles, which lay there in the sun, masses of rock set in a
sea sparkling with diamond points. There were two pretty girls in the
pilot-house, and the artist thought their presence there accounted for
the serene voyage, for the masts of a wrecked schooner rising out of the
shallows to the north reminded him that this is a dangerous coast. But
he said the passengers would have a greater sense of security if the
usual placard (for the benefit of the captain) was put up: “No flirting
with the girl at the wheel.”

At a distance nothing could be more barren than these islands, which
Captain John Smith and their native poet have enveloped in a halo of
romance, and it was not until the steamer was close to it that any
landing-place was visible on Appledore, the largest of the group.

The boat turned into a pretty little harbor among the rocks, and
the settlement was discovered: a long, low, old-fashioned hotel with
piazzas, and a few cottages, perched on the ledges, the door-yards of
which were perfectly ablaze with patches of flowers, masses of red,
yellow, purple-poppies, marigolds, nasturtiums, bachelor's-buttons,
lovely splashes of color against the gray lichen-covered rock. At
the landing is an interior miniature harbor, walled in, and safe for
children to paddle about and sail on in tiny boats. The islands offer
scarcely any other opportunity for bathing, unless one dare take a
plunge off the rocks.

Talk of the kaleidoscope! At a turn of the wrist, as it were, the
elements of society had taken a perfectly novel shape here. Was it only
a matter of grouping and setting, or were these people different from
all others the tourists had seen? There was a lively scene in the hotel
corridor, the spacious office with its long counters and post-office,
when the noon mail was opened and the letters called out. So many pretty
girls, with pet dogs of all degrees of ugliness (dear little objects of
affection overflowing and otherwise running to waste--one of the most
pathetic sights in this sad world), jaunty suits with a nautical cut,
for boating and rock-climbing, family groups, so much animation and
excitement over the receipt of letters, so much well-bred chaffing
and friendliness, such an air of refinement and “style,” but withal
so homelike. These people were “guests” of the proprietors, who
nevertheless felt a sort of proprietorship themselves in the little
island, and were very much like a company together at sea. For living
on this island is not unlike being on shipboard at sea, except that this
rock does not heave about in a nauseous way.

Mr. King discovered by the register that the Bensons had been here (of
all places in the world, he thought this would be the ideal one for a
few days with her), and Miss Lamont had a letter from Irene, which she
did not offer to read.

“They didn't stay long,” she said, as Mr. King seemed to expect some
information out of the letter, “and they have gone on to Bar Harbor. I
should like to stop here a week; wouldn't you?”

“Ye-e-s,” trying to recall the mood he was in before he looked at the
register; “but--but” (thinking of the words “gone on to Bar Harbor”) “it
is a place, after all, that you can see in a short time--go all over it
in half a day.”

“But you want to sit about on the rocks, and look at the sea, and
dream.”

“I can't dream on an island-not on a small island. It's too cooped up;
you get a feeling of being a prisoner.”

“I suppose you wish 'that little isle had wings, and you and I within
its shady--'”

“There's one thing I will not stand, Miss Lamont, and that's Moore.”

“Come, let's go to Star Island.”

The party went in the tug Pinafore, which led a restless, fussy life,
puffing about among these islands, making the circuit of Appledore at
fixed hours, and acting commonly as a ferry. Star Island is smaller than
Appledore and more barren, but it has the big hotel (and a different
class of guests from those on Appledore), and several monuments of
romantic interest. There is the ancient stone church, rebuilt some time
in this century; there are some gravestones; there is a monument to
Captain John Smith, the only one existing anywhere to that interesting
adventurer--a triangular shaft, with a long inscription that could
not have been more eulogistic if he had composed it himself. There is
something pathetic in this lonely monument when we recall Smith's own
touching allusion to this naked rock, on which he probably landed
when he once coasted along this part of New England, as being his sole
possession in the world at the end of his adventurous career:

   “No lot for me but Smith's Isles, which are an array of barren
   rocks, the most overgrown with shrubs and sharpe whins you can
   hardly pass them; without either grasse or wood, but three or foure
   short shrubby old cedars.”

Every tourist goes to the south end of Star Island, and climbs down on
the face of the precipice to the “Chair,” a niche where a school-teacher
used to sit as long ago as 1848. She was sitting there one day when a
wave came up and washed her away into the ocean. She disappeared. But
she who loses her life shall save it. That one thoughtless act of hers
did more for her reputation than years of faithful teaching, than
all her beauty, grace, and attractions. Her “Chair” is a point of
pilgrimage. The tourist looks at it, guesses at its height above the
water, regards the hungry sea with aversion, re-enacts the drama in his
imagination, sits in the chair, has his wife sit in it, has his boy and
girl sit in it together, wonders what the teacher's name was, stops
at the hotel and asks the photograph girl, who does not know, and the
proprietor, who says it's in a book somewhere, and finally learns that
it was Underhill, and straightway forgets it when he leaves the island.

What a delicious place it is, this Appledore, when the elements favor!
The party were lodged in a little cottage, whence they overlooked the
hotel and the little harbor, and could see all the life of the place,
looking over the bank of flowers that draped the rocks of the door-yard.
How charming was the miniature pond, with the children sailing round and
round, and the girls in pretty costumes bathing, and sunlight lying so
warm upon the greenish-gray rocks! But the night, following the glorious
after-glow, the red sky, all the level sea, and the little harbor
burnished gold, the rocks purple--oh! the night, when the moon came! Oh,
Irene! Great heavens! why will this world fall into such a sentimental
fit, when all the sweetness and the light of it are away at Bar Harbor!

Love and moonlight, and the soft lapse of the waves and singing? Yes,
there are girls down by the landing with a banjo, and young men singing
the songs of love, the modern songs of love dashed with college slang.
The banjo suggests a little fastness; and this new generation carries
off its sentiment with some bravado and a mocking tone. Presently the
tug Pinafore glides up to the landing, the engineer flings open the
furnace door, and the glowing fire illumines the interior, brings out
forms and faces, and deepens the heavy shadows outside. It is like a
cavern scene in the opera. A party of ladies in white come down to cross
to Star. Some of these insist upon climbing up to the narrow deck, to
sit on the roof and enjoy the moonlight and the cinders. Girls like
to do these things, which are more unconventional than hazardous, at
watering-places.

What a wonderful effect it is, the masses of rock, water, sky, the
night, all details lost in simple lines and forms! On the piazza of
the cottage is a group of ladies and gentlemen in poses more or less
graceful; one lady is in a hammock; on one side is the moonlight, on the
other come gleams from the curtained windows touching here and there
a white shoulder, or lighting a lovely head; the vines running up on
strings and half enclosing the piazza make an exquisite tracery against
the sky, and cast delicate shadow patterns on the floor; all the time
music within, the piano, the violin, and the sweet waves of a woman's
voice singing the songs of Schubert, floating out upon the night. A soft
wind blows out of the west.

The northern part of Appledore Island is an interesting place to wander.
There are no trees, but the plateau is far from barren. The gray rocks
crop out among bayberry and huckleberry bushes, and the wild rose, very
large and brilliant in color, fairly illuminates the landscape, massing
its great bushes. Amid the chaotic desert of broken rocks farther south
are little valleys of deep green grass, gay with roses. On the savage
precipices at the end one may sit in view of an extensive sweep of coast
with a few hills, and of other rocky islands, sails, and ocean-going
steamers. Here are many nooks and hidden corners to dream in and
make love in, the soft sea air being favorable to that soft-hearted
occupation.

One could easily get attached to the place, if duty and Irene did
not call elsewhere. Those who dwell here the year round find most
satisfaction when the summer guests have gone and they are alone with
freaky nature. “Yes,” said the woman in charge of one of the cottages,
“I've lived here the year round for sixteen years, and I like it. After
we get fixed up comfortable for winter, kill a critter, have pigs, and
make my own sassengers, then there ain't any neighbors comin' in, and
that's what I like.”




VII. BAR HARBOR

The attraction of Bar Harbor is in the union of mountain and sea; the
mountains rise in granite majesty right out of the ocean. The traveler
expects to find a repetition of Mount Athos rising six thousand feet out
of the AEgean.

The Bar-Harborers made a mistake in killing--if they did kill--the
stranger who arrived at this resort from the mainland, and said it would
be an excellent sea-and-mountain place if there were any mountains
or any sea in sight. Instead, if they had taken him in a row-boat and
pulled him out through the islands, far enough, he would have had a
glimpse of the ocean, and if then he had been taken by the cog-railway
seventeen hundred feet to the top of Green Mountain, he would not
only have found himself on firm, rising ground, but he would have been
obliged to confess that, with his feet upon a solid mountain of granite,
he saw innumerable islands and, at a distance, a considerable quantity
of ocean. He would have repented his hasty speech. In two days he would
have been a partisan of the place, and in a week he would have been an
owner of real estate there.

There is undeniably a public opinion in Bar Harbor in favor of it, and
the visitor would better coincide with it. He is anxiously asked at
every turn how he likes it, and if he does not like it he is an object
of compassion. Countless numbers of people who do not own a foot of
land there are devotees of the place. Any number of certificates to its
qualities could be obtained, as to a patent medicine, and they would all
read pretty much alike, after the well-known formula: “The first bottle
I took did, me no good, after the second I was worse, after the third I
improved, after the twelfth I walked fifty miles in one day; and now I
never do without it, I take never less than fifty bottles a year.” So it
would be: “At first I felt just as you do, shut-in place, foggy, stayed
only two days. Only came back again to accompany friends, stayed a week,
foggy, didn't like it. Can't tell how I happened to come back again,
stayed a month, and I tell you, there is no place like it in America.
Spend all my summers here.”

The genesis of Bar Harbor is curious and instructive. For many years,
like other settlements on Mount Desert Island; it had been frequented by
people who have more fondness for nature than they have money, and who
were willing to put up with wretched accommodations, and enjoyed a mild
sort of “roughing it.” But some society people in New York, who have the
reputation of setting the mode, chanced to go there; they declared in
favor of it; and instantly, by an occult law which governs fashionable
life, Bar Harbor became the fashion. Everybody could see its preeminent
attractions. The word was passed along by the Boudoir Telephone from
Boston to New Orleans, and soon it was a matter of necessity for a
debutante, or a woman of fashion, or a man of the world, or a blase
boy, to show themselves there during the season. It became the scene
of summer romances; the student of manners went there to study the
“American girl.” The notion spread that it was the finest sanitarium on
the continent for flirtations; and as trade is said to follow the flag,
so in this case real-estate speculation rioted in the wake of beauty and
fashion.

There is no doubt that the “American girl” is there, as she is at
divers other sea-and-land resorts; but the present peculiarity of
this watering-place is that the American young man is there also. Some
philosophers have tried to account for this coincidence by assuming that
the American girl is the attraction to the young man. But this seems to
me a misunderstanding of the spirit of this generation. Why are young
men quoted as “scarce” in other resorts swarming with sweet girls,
maidens who have learned the art of being agreeable, and interesting
widows in the vanishing shades of an attractive and consolable grief?
No. Is it not rather the cold, luminous truth that the American girl
found out that Bar Harbor, without her presence, was for certain
reasons, such as unconventionality, a bracing air, opportunity for
boating, etc., agreeable to the young man? But why do elderly people
go there? This question must have been suggested by a foreigner, who is
ignorant that in a republic it is the young ones who know what is best
for the elders.

Our tourists passed a weary, hot day on the coast railway of Maine.
Notwithstanding the high temperature, the country seemed cheerless,
the sunlight to fall less genially than in more fertile regions to
the south, upon a landscape stripped of its forests, naked, and
unpicturesque. Why should the little white houses of the prosperous
little villages on the line of the rail seem cold and suggest winter,
and the land seem scrimped and without an atmosphere? It chanced so, for
everybody knows that it is a lovely coast. The artist said it was the
Maine Law. But that could not be, for the only drunken man encountered
on their tour they saw at the Bangor Station, where beer was furtively
sold.

They were plunged into a cold bath on the steamer in the half-hour's
sail from the end of the rail to Bar Harbor. The wind was fresh,
white-caps enlivened the scene, the spray dashed over the huge pile of
baggage on the bow, the passengers shivered, and could little enjoy
the islands and the picturesque shore, but fixed eyes of hope upon the
electric lights which showed above the headlands, and marked the site
of the hotels and the town in the hidden harbor. Spits of rain dashed
in their faces, and in some discomfort they came to the wharf, which
was alive with vehicles and tooters for the hotels. In short, with its
lights and noise, it had every appearance of being an important place,
and when our party, holding on to their seats in a buckboard, were
whirled at a gallop up to Rodick's, and ushered into a spacious office
swarming with people, they realized that they were entering upon a
lively if somewhat haphazard life. The first confused impression was of
a bewildering number of slim, pretty girls, nonchalant young fellows in
lawn-tennis suits, and indefinite opportunities in the halls and parlors
and wide piazzas for promenade and flirtations.

Rodick's is a sort of big boarding-house, hesitating whether to be a
hotel or not, no bells in the rooms, no bills of fare (or rarely one),
no wine-list, a go-as-you-please, help-yourself sort of place, which is
popular because it has its own character, and everybody drifts into it
first or last. Some say it is an acquired taste; that people do not take
to it at first. The big office is a sort of assembly-room, where new
arrivals are scanned and discovered, and it is unblushingly called
the “fish-pond” by the young ladies who daily angle there. Of the
unconventional ways of the establishment Mr. King had an illustration
when he attempted to get some washing done. Having read a notice that
the hotel had no laundry, he was told, on applying at the office, that
if he would bring his things down there they would try to send them
out for him. Not being accustomed to carrying about soiled clothes, he
declined this proposal, and consulted a chambermaid. She told him that
ladies came to the house every day for the washing, and that she
would speak to one of them. No result following this, after a day King
consulted the proprietor, and asked him point blank, as a friend, what
course he would pursue if he were under the necessity of having washing
done in that region. The proprietor said that Mr. King's wants should
be attended to at once. Another day passed without action, when the
chambermaid was again applied to. “There's a lady just come in to the
hall I guess will do it.”

“Is she trustworthy?”

“Don't know, she washes for the woman in the room next to you.” And the
lady was at last secured.

Somebody said that those who were accustomed to luxury at home liked
Rodick's, and that those who were not grumbled. And it was true that
fashion for the moment elected to be pleased with unconventionality,
finding a great zest in freedom, and making a joke of every
inconvenience. Society will make its own rules, and although there are
several other large hotels, and good houses as watering-place hotels go,
and cottage-life here as elsewhere is drawing away its skirts from hotel
life, society understood why a person might elect to stay at Rodick's.
Bar Harbor has one of the most dainty and refined little hotels in the
world-the Malvern. Any one can stay there who is worth two millions of
dollars, or can produce a certificate from the Recorder of New York that
he is a direct descendant of Hendrick Hudson or Diedrich Knickerbocker.
It is needless to say that it was built by a Philadelphian--that is to
say one born with a genius for hotel-keeping. But though a guest at the
Malvern might not eat with a friend at Rodick's, he will meet him as a
man of the world on friendly terms.

Bar Harbor was indeed an interesting society study. Except in some of
the cottages, it might be said that society was on a lark. With all the
manners of the world and the freemasonry of fashionable life, it had
elected to be unconventional. The young ladies liked to appear in
nautical and lawn-tennis toilet, carried so far that one might refer
to the “cut of their jib,” and their minds were not much given to any
elaborate dressing for evening. As to the young gentlemen, if there were
any dress-coats on the island, they took pains not to display them,
but delighted in appearing in the evening promenade, and even in the
ballroom, in the nondescript suits that made them so conspicuous in the
morning, the favorite being a dress of stripes, with striped jockey
cap to match, that did not suggest the penitentiary uniform, because in
state-prisons the stripes run round. This neglige costume was adhered
to even in the ballroom. To be sure, the ballroom was little frequented,
only an adventurous couple now and then gliding over the floor, and
affording scant amusement to the throng gathered on the piazza and about
the open windows. Mrs. Montrose, a stately dame of the old school,
whose standard was the court in the days of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster,
disapproved of this laxity, and when a couple of young fellows in
striped array one evening whirled round the room together, with
brier-wood pipes in their mouths, she was scandalized. If the young
ladies shared her sentiments they made no resolute protests, remembering
perhaps the scarcity of young men elsewhere, and thinking that it is
better to be loved by a lawn-tennis suit than not to be loved at all.
The daughters of Mrs. Montrose thought they should draw the line on the
brier-wood pipe.

Dancing, however, is not the leading occupation at Bar Harbor, it is
rather neglected. A cynic said that the chief occupation was to wait at
the “fishpond” for new arrivals--the young ladies angling while their
mothers and chaperons--how shall we say it to complete the figure?--held
the bait. It is true that they did talk in fisherman's lingo about this,
asked each other if they had a nibble or a bite, or boasted that they
had hauled one in, or complained that it was a poor day for fishing. But
this was all chaff, born of youthful spirits and the air of the place.
If the young men took airs upon themselves under the impression they
were in much demand, they might have had their combs cut if they had
heard how they were weighed and dissected and imitated, and taken off
as to their peculiarities, and known, most of them, by sobriquets
characteristic of their appearance or pretentions. There was one young
man from the West, who would have been flattered with the appellation of
“dude,” so attractive in the fit of his clothes, the manner in which
he walked and used his cane and his eyeglass, that Mr. King wanted very
much to get him and bring him away in a cage. He had no doubt that he
was a favorite with every circle and wanted in every group, and the
young ladies did seem to get a great deal of entertainment out of him.
He was not like the young man in the Scriptures except that he was
credited with having great possessions.

No, the principal occupation at Bar Harbor was not fishing in the
house. It was outdoor exercise, incessant activity in driving, walking,
boating, rowing and sailing--bowling, tennis, and flirtation. There was
always an excursion somewhere, by land or sea, watermelon parties, races
in the harbor in which the girls took part, drives in buckboards which
they organized--indeed, the canoe and the buckboard were in constant
demand. In all this there was a pleasing freedom--of course under proper
chaperonage. And such delightful chaperons as they were, their business
being to promote and not to hinder the intercourse of the sexes!

This activity, this desire to row and walk and drive and to become
acquainted, was all due to the air. It has a peculiar quality. Even
the skeptic has to admit this. It composes his nerves to sleep, it
stimulates to unwonted exertion. The fanatics of the place declare that
the fogs are not damp as at other resorts on the coast. Fashion can
make even a fog dry. But the air is delicious. In this latitude, and by
reason of the hills, the atmosphere is pure and elastic and stimulating,
and it is softened by the presence of the sea. This union gives a
charming effect. It is better than the Maine Law. The air being like
wine, one does not need stimulants. If one is addicted to them and
is afraid to trust the air, he is put to the trouble of sneaking into
masked places, and becoming a party to petty subterfuges for evading the
law. And the wretched man adds to the misdemeanor of this evasion the
moral crime of consuming bad liquor.

“Everybody” was at Bar Harbor, or would be there in course of the
season. Mrs. Cortlandt was there, and Mrs. Pendragon of New Orleans, one
of the most brilliant, amiable, and charming of women. I remember her
as far back as the seventies. A young man like Mr. King, if he could
be called young, could not have a safer and more sympathetic social
adviser. Why are not all handsome women cordial, good-tempered,
and well-bred! And there were the Ashleys--clever mother and three
daughters, au-fait girls, racy and witty talkers; I forget whether they
were last from Paris, Washington, or San Francisco. Family motto: “Don't
be dull.” All the Van Dams from New York, and the Sleiderheifers and
Mulligrubs of New Jersey, were there for the season, some of them in
cottages. These families are intimate, even connected by marriage, with
the Bayardiers of South Carolina and the Lontoons of Louisiana. The
girls are handsome, dashing women, without much information, but
rattling talkers, and so exclusive! and the young men, with a Piccadilly
air, fancy that they belong to the “Prince of Wales set,” you know.
There is a good deal of monarchical simplicity in our heterogeneous
society.

Mrs. Cortlandt was quite in her element here as director-general of
expeditions and promoter of social activity. “I have been expecting
you,” she was kind enough to say to Mr. King the morning after his
arrival. “Kitty Van Sanford spied you last night, and exclaimed, 'There,
now, is a real reinforcement!' You see that you are mortgaged already.”

“It's very kind of you to expect me. Is there anybody else here I know?”

“Several hundreds, I should say. If you cannot find friends here, you
are a subject for an orphan-asylum. And you have not seen anybody?”

“Well, I was late at breakfast.”

“And you have not looked on the register?”

“Yes, I did run my eye over the register.”

“And you are standing right before me and trying to look as if you did
not know that Irene Benson is in the house. I didn't think, Mr. King, it
had gone that far-indeed I didn't. You know I'm in a manner responsible
for it. And I heard all about you at Newport. She's a heart of gold,
that girl.”

“Did she--did Miss Benson say anything about Newport?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, I didn't know but she might have mentioned how she liked it.”

“I don't think she liked it as much as her mother did. Mrs. Benson talks
of nothing else. Irene said nothing special to me. I don't know what she
may have said to Mr. Meigs,” this wily woman added, in the most natural
manner.

“Who is Mr. Meigs?”

“Mr. Alfred Meigs, Boston. He is a rich widower, about forty--the most
fascinating age for a widower, you know. I think he is conceited, but
he is really a most entertaining man; has traveled all over the
world--Egypt, Persia--lived in Japan, prides himself a little on never
having been in Colorado or Florida.”

“What does he do?”

“Do? He drives Miss Benson to Otter Cliffs, and out on the Cornice Road,
about seven days in the week, and gets up sailing-parties and all that
in the intervals.”

“I mean his occupation.”

“Isn't that occupation enough? Well, he has a library and a little
archaeological museum, and prints monographs on art now and then. If he
were a New-Yorker, you know, he would have a yacht instead of a library.
There they are now.”

A carriage with a pair of spirited horses stood at the bottom of the
steps on the entrance side. Mrs. Cortlandt and King turned the corner
of the piazza and walked that way. On the back seat were Mrs. Benson and
Mrs. Simpkins. The gentleman holding the reins was just helping Irene
to the high seat in front. Mr. King was running down the long flight of
steps. Mrs. Benson saw him, bowed most cordially, and called his name.
Irene, turning quickly, also bowed--he thought there was a flush on her
face. The gentleman, in the act of starting the horses, raised his hat.
King was delighted to notice that he was bald. He had a round head,
snugly-trimmed beard slightly dashed with gray, was short and a trifle
stout--King thought dumpy. “I suppose women like that kind of man,” he
said to Mrs. Cortlandt when the carriage was out of sight.

“Why not? He has perfect manners; he knows the world--that is a great
point, I can tell you, in the imagination of a girl; he is rich; and he
is no end obliging.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Several days. They happened to come up from the Isles of Shoals
together. He is somehow related to the Simpkinses. There! I've wasted
time enough on you. I must go and see Mrs. Pendragon about a watermelon
party to Jordan Pond. You'll see, I'll arrange something.”

King had no idea what a watermelon party was, but he was pleased to
think that it was just the sort of thing that Mr. Meigs would shine
in. He said to himself that he hated dilettante snobs. His bitter
reflections were interrupted by the appearance of Miss Lamont and the
artist, and with them Mr. Benson. The men shook hands with downright
heartiness. Here is a genuine man, King was thinking.

“Yes. We are still at it,” he said, with his humorous air of
resignation. “I tell my wife that I'm beginning to understand how old
Christian felt going through Vanity Fair. We ought to be pretty near
the Heavenly Gates by this time. I reckoned she thought they opened into
Newport. She said I ought to be ashamed to ridicule the Bible. I had to
have my joke. It's queer how different the world looks to women.”

“And how does it look to men?” asked Miss Lamont.

“Well, my dear young lady, it looks like a good deal of fuss, and
tolerably large bills.”

“But what does it matter about the bills if you enjoy yourself?”

“That's just it. Folks work harder to enjoy themselves than at anything
else I know. Half of them spend more money than they can afford to, and
keep under the harrow all the time, just because they see others spend
money.”

“I saw your wife and daughter driving away just now,” said King,
shifting the conversation to a more interesting topic.

“Yes. They have gone to take a ride over what they call here the
Cornneechy. It's a pretty enough road along the bay, but Irene says
it's about as much like the road in Europe they name it from as Green
Mountain is like Mount Blanck. Our folks seem possessed to stick a
foreign name on to everything. And the road round through the scrub to
Eagle Lake they call Norway. If Norway is like that, it's pretty short
of timber. If there hadn't been so much lumbering here, I should like
it better. There is hardly a decent pine-tree left. Mr. Meigs--they have
gone riding with Mr. Meigs--says the Maine government ought to have a
Maine law that amounts to something--one that will protect the forests,
and start up some trees on the coast.”

“Is Mr. Meigs in the lumber business?” asked King.

“Only for scenery, I guess. He is great on scenery. He's a Boston man.
I tell the women that he is what I call a bric-er-brac man. But you
come to set right down with him, away from women, and he talks just as
sensible as anybody. He is shrewd enough. It beats all how men are with
men and with women.”

Mr. Benson was capable of going on in this way all day. But the artist
proposed a walk up to Newport, and Mr. King getting Mrs. Pendragon
to accompany them, the party set out. It is a very agreeable climb up
Newport, and not difficult; but if the sun is out, one feels, after
scrambling over the rocks and walking home by the dusty road, like
taking a long pull at a cup of shandygaff. The mountain is a solid mass
of granite, bare on top, and commands a noble view of islands and ocean,
of the gorge separating it from Green Mountain, and of that respectable
hill. For this reason, because it is some two or three hundred feet
lower than Green Mountain, and includes that scarred eminence in its
view, it is the most picturesque and pleasing elevation on the island.
It also has the recommendation of being nearer to the sea than its
sister mountain. On the south side, by a long slope, it comes nearly to
the water, and the longing that the visitor to Bar Harbor has to see the
ocean is moderately gratified. The prospect is at once noble and poetic.

Mrs. Pendragon informed Mr. King that he and Miss Lamont and Mr. Forbes
were included in the watermelon party that was to start that afternoon
at five o'clock. The plan was for the party to go in buckboards to Eagle
Lake, cross that in the steamer, scramble on foot over the “carry” to
Jordan Pond, take row-boats to the foot of that, and find at a farmhouse
there the watermelons and other refreshments, which would be sent by the
shorter road, and then all return by moonlight in the buckboards.

This plan was carried out. Mrs. Cortlandt, Mrs. Pendragon, and Mrs.
Simpkins were to go as chaperons, and Mr. Meigs had been invited by Mrs.
Cortlandt, King learned to his disgust, also to act as a chaperon. All
the proprieties are observed at Bar Harbor. Half a dozen long buckboards
were loaded with their merry freight. At the last Mrs. Pendragon pleaded
a headache, and could not go. Mr. King was wandering about among the
buckboards to find an eligible seat. He was not put in good humor by
finding that Mr. Meigs had ensconced himself beside Irene, and he was
about crowding in with the Ashley girls--not a bad fate--when word was
passed down the line from Mrs. Cortlandt, who was the autocrat of the
expedition, that Mr. Meigs was to come back and take a seat with Mrs.
Simpkins in the buckboard with the watermelons. She could not walk
around the “carry”; she must go by the direct road, and of course she
couldn't go alone. There was no help for it, and Mr. Meigs, looking as
cheerful as an undertaker in a healthy season, got down from his seat
and trudged back. Thus two chaperons were disposed of at a stroke, and
the young men all said that they hated to assume so much responsibility.
Mr. King didn't need prompting in this emergency; the wagons were
already moving, and before Irene knew exactly what had happened, Mr.
King was begging her pardon for the change, and seating himself beside
her. And he was thinking, “What a confoundedly clever woman Mrs.
Cortlandt is!”

There is an informality about a buckboard that communicates itself
at once to conduct. The exhilaration of the long spring-board, the
necessity of holding on to something or somebody to prevent being tossed
overboard, put occupants in a larkish mood that they might never attain
in an ordinary vehicle. All this was favorable to King, and it relieved
Irene from an embarrassment she might have felt in meeting him under
ordinary circumstances. And King had the tact to treat himself and their
meeting merely as accidents.

“The American youth seem to have invented a novel way of disposing
of chaperons,” he said. “To send them in one direction and the party
chaperoned in another is certainly original.”

“I'm not sure the chaperons like it. And I doubt if it is proper to pack
them off by themselves, especially when one is a widow and the other is
a widower.”

“It's a case of chaperon eat chaperon. I hope your friend didn't mind
it. I had nearly despaired of finding a seat.”

“Mr. Meigs? He did not say he liked it, but he is the most obliging of
men.”

“I suppose you have pretty well seen the island?”

“We have driven about a good deal. We have seen Southwest Harbor, and
Somes's Sound and Schooner Head, and the Ovens and Otter Cliffs--there's
no end of things to see; it needs a month. I suppose you have been up
Green Mountain?”

“No. I sent Mr. Forbes.”

“You ought to go. It saves buying a map. Yes, I like the place
immensely. You mustn't judge of the variety here by the table at
Rodick's. I don't suppose there's a place on the coast that compares
with it in interest; I mean variety of effects and natural beauty. If
the writers wouldn't exaggerate so, talk about 'the sublimity of the
mountains challenging the eternal grandeur of the sea'!”

“Don't use such strong language there on the back seat,” cried Miss
Lamont. “This is a pleasure party. Mr. Van Dusen wants to know why Maud
S. is like a salamander?”

“He is not to be gratified, Marion. If it is conundrums, I shall get out
and walk.”

Before the conundrum was guessed, the volatile Van Dusen broke out into,
“Here's a how d'e do!” One of the Ashley girls in the next wagon caught
up the word with, “Here's a state of things!” and the two buckboards
went rattling down the hill to Eagle Lake in a “Mikado” chorus.

“The Mikado troupe seems to have got over here in advance of Sullivan,”
 said Mr. King to Irene. “I happened to see the first representation.”

“Oh, half these people were in London last spring. They give you the
impression that they just run over to the States occasionally. Mr.
Van Dusen says he keeps his apartments in whatever street it is off
Piccadilly, it's so much more convenient.”

On the steamer crossing the lake, King hoped for an opportunity to make
an explanation to Irene. But when the opportunity came he found it very
difficult to tell what it was he wanted to explain, and so blundered on
in commonplaces.

“You like Bar Harbor so well,” he said, “that I suppose your father will
be buying a cottage here?”

“Hardly. Mr. Meigs” (King thought there was too much Meigs in the
conversation) “said that he had once thought of doing so, but he likes
the place too well for that. He prefers to come here voluntarily. The
trouble about owning a cottage at a watering-place is that it makes a
duty of a pleasure. You can always rent, father says. He has noticed
that usually when a person gets comfortably established in a summer
cottage he wants to rent it.”

“And you like it better than Newport?”

“On some accounts--the air, you know, and--”

“I want to tell you,” he said breaking in most illogically--“I want to
tell you, Miss Benson, that it was all a wretched mistake at Newport
that morning. I don't suppose you care, but I'm afraid you are not quite
just to me.”

“I don't think I was unjust.” The girl's voice was low, and she spoke
slowly. “You couldn't help it. We can't any of us help it. We cannot
make the world over, you know.” And she looked up at him with a faint
little smile.

“But you didn't understand. I didn't care for any of those people. It
was just an accident. Won't you believe me? I do not ask much. But I
cannot have you think I'm a coward.”

“I never did, Mr. King. Perhaps you do not see what society is as I do.
People think they can face it when they cannot. I can't say what I mean,
and I think we'd better not talk about it.”

The boat was landing; and the party streamed up into the woods, and
with jest and laughter and feigned anxiety about danger and assistance,
picked its way over the rough, stony path. It was such a scramble as
young ladies enjoy, especially if they are city bred, for it seems to
them an achievement of more magnitude than to the country lasses who see
nothing uncommon or heroic in following a cow-path. And the young men
like it because it brings out the trusting, dependent, clinging nature
of girls. King wished it had been five miles long instead of a mile
and a half. It gave him an opportunity to show his helpful, considerate
spirit. It was necessary to take her hand to help her over the bad
spots, and either the bad spots increased as they went on, or Irene
was deceived about it. What makes a path of this sort so perilous to a
woman's heart? Is it because it is an excuse for doing what she longs to
do? Taking her hand recalled the day on the rocks at Narragansett, and
the nervous clutch of her little fingers, when the footing failed, sent
a delicious thrill through her lover. King thought himself quite in love
with Forbes--there was the warmest affection between the two--but when
he hauled the artist up a Catskill cliff there wasn't the least of this
sort of a thrill in the grip of hands. Perhaps if women had the ballot
in their hands all this nervous fluid would disappear out of the world.

At Jordan Pond boats were waiting. It is a pretty fresh-water pond
between high sloping hills, and twin peaks at the north end give it even
picturesqueness. There are a good many trout in it--at least that is the
supposition, for the visitors very seldom get them out. When the boats
with their chattering passengers had pushed out into the lake and
accomplished a third of the voyage, they were met by a skiff containing
the faithful chaperons Mrs. Simpkins and Mr. Meigs. They hailed, but
Mr. King, who was rowing his boat, did not slacken speed. “Are you much
tired, Miss Benson?” shouted Mr. Meigs. King didn't like this assumption
of protection. “I've brought you a shawl.”

“Hang his paternal impudence!” growled King, under his breath, as he
threw himself back with a jerk on the oars that nearly sent Irene over
the stern of the boat.

Evidently the boat-load, of which the Ashley girls and Mr. Van Dusen
were a part, had taken the sense of this little comedy, for immediately
they struck up:

     “For he is going to marry Yum-Yum--
               Yum-Yum!
     For he is going to marry Yum-Yum--
               Yum-Yum!”

This pleasantry passed entirely over the head of Irene, who had not
heard the “Mikado,” but King accepted it as a good omen, and forgave its
impudence. It set Mr. Meigs thinking that he had a rival.

At the landing, however, Mr. Meigs was on hand to help Irene out, and
a presentation of Mr. King followed. Mr. Meigs was polite even to
cordiality, and thanked him for taking such good care of her. Men will
make such blunders sometimes.

“Oh, we are old friends,” she said carelessly.

Mr. Meigs tried to mend matters by saying that he had promised Mrs.
Benson, you know, to look after her. There was that in Irene's manner
that said she was not to be appropriated without leave. But the
consciousness that her look betrayed this softened her at once towards
Mr. Meigs, and decidedly improved his chances for the evening. The
philosopher says that women are cruelest when they set out to be kind.

The supper was an 'al fresco' affair, the party being seated about on
rocks and logs and shawls spread upon the grass near the farmer's house.
The scene was a very pretty one, at least the artist thought so, and
Miss Lamont said it was lovely, and the Ashley girls declared it was
just divine. There was no reason why King should not enjoy the chaff and
merriment and the sunset light which touched the group, except that
the one woman he cared to serve was enveloped in the attentions of
Mr. Meigs. The drive home in the moonlight was the best part of the
excursion, or it would have been if there had not been a general change
of seats ordered, altogether, as Mr. King thought, for the accommodation
of the Boston man. It nettled him that Irene let herself fall to the
escort of Mr. Meigs, for women can always arrange these things if they
choose, and he had only a melancholy satisfaction in the college songs
and conundrums that enlivened the festive buckboard in which he was a
passenger. Not that he did not join in the hilarity, but it seemed only
a poor imitation of pleasure. Alas, that the tone of one woman's voice,
the touch of her hand, the glance of her eye, should outweigh the world!

Somehow, with all the opportunities, the suit of our friend did not
advance beyond a certain point. Irene was always cordial, always
friendly, but he tried in vain to ascertain whether the middle-aged man
from Boston had touched her imagination. There was a boating party the
next evening in Frenchman's Bay, and King had the pleasure of pulling
Miss Benson and Miss Lamont out seaward under the dark, frowning cliffs
until they felt the ocean swell, and then of making the circuit of
Porcupine Island. It was an enchanting night, full of mystery. The rock
face of the Porcupine glistened white in the moonlight as if it were
encrusted with salt, the waves beat in a continuous roar against its
base, which is honeycombed by the action of the water, and when the boat
glided into its shadow it loomed up vast and wonderful. Seaward were the
harbor lights, the phosphorescent glisten of the waves, the dim forms of
other islands; all about in the bay row-boats darted in and out of the
moonlight, voices were heard calling from boat to boat, songs floated
over the water, and the huge Portland steamer came plunging in out of
the night, a blazing, trembling monster. Not much was said in the boat,
but the impression of such a night goes far in the romance of real life.

Perhaps it was this impression that made her assent readily to a walk
next morning with Mr. King along the bay. The shore is nearly all
occupied by private cottages, with little lawns running down to the
granite edge of the water. It is a favorite place for strolling; couples
establish themselves with books and umbrellas on the rocks, children are
dabbling in the coves, sails enliven the bay, row-boats dart about, the
cawing of crows is heard in the still air. Irene declared that the scene
was idyllic. The girl was in a most gracious humor, and opened her life
more to King than she had ever done before. By such confidences usually
women invite avowals, and as the two paced along, King felt the moment
approach when there would be the most natural chance in the world for
him to tell this woman what she was to him; at the next turn in the
shore, by that rock, surely the moment would come. What is this airy
nothing by which women protect themselves in such emergencies, by a
question, by a tone, an invisible strong barrier that the most impetuous
dare not attempt to break?

King felt the subtle restraint which he could not define or explain. And
before he could speak she said: “We are going away tomorrow.” “We? And
who are we?” “Oh, the Simpkinses and our whole family, and Mr. Meigs.”
 “And where?”

“Mr. Meigs has persuaded mother into the wildest scheme. It is nothing
less than to leap from, here across all the intervening States to the
White Sulphur Springs in Virginia. Father falls into the notion because
he wants to see more of the Southerners, Mrs. Simpkins and her daughter
are crazy to go, and Mr. Meigs says he has been trying to get there all
his life, and in August the season is at its height. It was all arranged
before I was consulted, but I confess I rather like it. It will be a
change.”

“Yes, I should think it would be delightful,” King replied, rather
absent-mindedly. “It's a long journey, a very long journey. I should
think it would be too long a journey for Mr. Meigs--at his time of
life.”

It was not a fortunate remark, and still it might be; for who could tell
whether Irene would not be flattered by this declaration of his jealousy
of Mr. Meigs. But she passed it over as not serious, with the remark
that the going did not seem to be beyond the strength of her father.

The introduction of Mr. Meigs in the guise of an accepted family
friend and traveling companion chilled King and cast a gloom over
the landscape. Afterwards he knew that he ought to have dashed in and
scattered this encompassing network of Meigs, disregarded the girl's
fence of reserve, and avowed his love. More women are won by a single
charge at the right moment than by a whole campaign of strategy.

On the way back to the hotel he was absorbed in thought, and he burst
into the room where Forbes was touching up one of his sketches, with a
fully-formed plan. “Old fellow, what do you say to going to Virginia?”

Forbes put in a few deliberate touches, moving his head from side to
side, and with aggravating slowness said, “What do you want to go to
Virginia for?”

“Why White Sulphur, of course; the most characteristic watering-place
in America. See the whole Southern life there in August; and there's the
Natural Bridge.”

“I've seen pictures of the Natural Bridge. I don't know as I care much”
 (still contemplating the sketch from different points of view, and
softly whistling) “for the whole of Southern life.”

“See here, Forbes, you must have some deep design to make you take that
attitude.”

“Deep design!” replied Forbes, facing round. “I'll be hanged if I see
what you are driving at. I thought it was Saratoga and Richfield, and
mild things of that sort.”

“And the little Lamont. I know we talked of going there with her and her
uncle; but we can go there afterwards. I tell you what I'll do: I'll go
to Richfield, and stay till snow comes, if you will take a dip with
me down into Virginia first. You ought to do it for your art. It's
something new, picturesque--negroes, Southern belles, old-time manners.
You cannot afford to neglect it.”

“I don't see the fun of being yanked all over the United States in the
middle of August.”

“You want shaking up. You've been drawing seashores with one figure in
them till your pictures all look like--well, like Lamont and water.”

“That's better,” Forbes retorted, “than Benson and gruel.”

And the two got into a huff. The artist took his sketch-book and went
outdoors, and King went to his room to study the guide-books and the map
of Virginia. The result was that when the friends met for dinner, King
said:

“I thought you might do it for me, old boy.”

And Forbes replied: “Why didn't you say so? I don't care a rap where I
go. But it's Richfield afterwards.”




VIII. NATURAL BRIDGE, WHITE SULFUR

What occurred at the parting between the artist and the little Lamont
at Bar Harbor I never knew. There was that good comradeship between
the two, that frank enjoyment of each other's society, without any
sentimental nonsense, so often seen between two young people in America,
which may end in a friendship of a summer, or extend to the cordial
esteem of a lifetime, or result in marriage. I always liked the girl;
she had such a sunny temper, such a flow of originality in her mental
attitude towards people and things without being a wit or a critic, and
so much piquancy in all her little ways. She would take to matrimony, I
should say, like a duck to water, with unruffled plumage, but as a wife
she would never be commonplace, or anything but engaging, and, as the
saying is, she could make almost any man happy. And, if unmarried, what
a delightful sister-in-law she would be, especially a deceased wife's
sister!

I never imagined that she was capable of a great passion, as was Irene
Benson, who under a serene exterior was moved by tides of deep feeling,
subject to moods, and full of aspirations and longings which she herself
only dimly knew the meaning of. With Irene marriage would be either
supreme happiness or extreme wretchedness, no half-way acceptance of a
conventional life. With such a woman life is a failure, either tragic or
pathetic, without a great passion given and returned. It is fortunate,
considering the chances that make unions in society, that for most men
and women the “grand passion” is neither necessary nor possible. I did
not share King's prejudice against Mr. Meigs. He seemed to me, as the
world goes, a 'bon parti,' cultivated by travel and reading, well-bred,
entertaining, amiable, possessed of an ample fortune, the ideal husband
in the eyes of a prudent mother. But I used to think that if Irene,
attracted by his many admirable qualities, should become his wife, and
that if afterwards the Prince should appear and waken the slumbering
woman's heart in her, what a tragedy would ensue. I can imagine their
placid existence if the Prince should not appear, and I can well believe
that Irene and Stanhope would have many a tumultuous passage in the
passionate symphony of their lives. But, great heavens, is the ideal
marriage a Holland!

If Marion had shed any tears overnight, say on account of a little
lonesomeness because her friend was speeding away from her
southward, there were no traces of them when she met her uncle at the
breakfast-table, as bright and chatty as usual, and in as high spirits
as one can maintain with the Rodick coffee.

What a world of shifting scenes it is! Forbes had picked up his traps
and gone off with his unreasonable companion like a soldier. The day
after, when he looked out of the window of his sleeping-compartment at
half-past four, he saw the red sky of morning, and against it the spires
of Philadelphia.

At ten o'clock the two friends were breakfasting comfortably in the car,
and running along down the Cumberland Valley. What a contrast was this
rich country, warm with color and suggestive of abundance, to the pale
and scrimped coast land of Maine denuded of its trees! By afternoon they
were far down the east valley of the Shenandoah, between the Blue Ridge
and the Massanutten range, in a country broken, picturesque, fertile, so
attractive that they wondered there were so few villages on the route,
and only now and then a cheap shanty in sight; and crossing the divide
to the waters of the James, at sundown, in the midst of a splendid
effect of mountains and clouds in a thunderstorm, they came to Natural
Bridge station, where a coach awaited them.

This was old ground to King, who had been telling the artist that the
two natural objects east of the Rocky Mountains that he thought entitled
to the epithet “sublime” were Niagara Falls and the Natural Bridge; and
as for scenery, he did not know of any more noble and refined than this
region of the Blue Ridge. Take away the Bridge altogether, which is a
mere freak, and the place would still possess, he said, a charm unique.
Since the enlargement of hotel facilities and the conversion of this
princely domain into a grand park, it has become a favorite summer
resort. The gorge of the Bridge is a botanical storehouse, greater
variety of evergreens cannot be found together anywhere else in the
country, and the hills are still clad with stately forests. In opening
drives, and cutting roads and vistas to give views, the proprietor
has shown a skill and taste in dealing with natural resources, both in
regard to form and the development of contrasts of color in foliage,
which are rare in landscape gardening on this side of the Atlantic. Here
is the highest part of the Blue Ridge, and from the gentle summit
of Mount Jefferson the spectator has in view a hundred miles of this
remarkable range, this ribbed mountain structure, which always wears a
mantle of beauty, changeable purple and violet.

After supper there was an illumination of the cascade, and the ancient
gnarled arbor-vita: trees that lean over it-perhaps the largest known
specimens of this species-of the gorge and the Bridge. Nature is apt to
be belittled by this sort of display, but the noble dignity of the vast
arch of stone was superior to this trifling, and even had a sort of
mystery added to its imposing grandeur. It is true that the flaming
bonfires and the colored lights and the tiny figures of men and women
standing in the gorge within the depth of the arch made the scene
theatrical, but it was strange and weird and awful, like the fantasy of
a Walpurgis' Night or a midnight revel in Faust.

The presence of the colored brother in force distinguished this from
provincial resorts at the North, even those that employ this color as
servants. The flavor of Old Virginia is unmistakable, and life drops
into an easy-going pace under this influence. What fine manners, to be
sure! The waiters in the diningroom, in white ties and dress-coats,
move on springs, starting even to walk with a complicated use of all the
muscles of the body, as if in response to the twang of a banjo; they
do nothing without excessive motion and flourish. The gestures and
good-humored vitality expended in changing plates would become the
leader of an orchestra. Many of them, besides, have the expression
of class-leaders--of a worldly sort. There were the aristocratic
chambermaid and porter, who had the air of never having waited on any
but the first families. And what clever flatterers and readers of human
nature! They can tell in a moment whether a man will be complimented by
the remark, “I tuk you for a Richmond gemman, never shod have know'd
you was from de Norf,” or whether it is best to say, “We depen's on de
gemmen frum de Norf; folks down hyer never gives noflin; is too pore.”
 But to a Richmond man it is always, “The Yankee is mighty keerful of
his money; we depen's on the old sort, marse.” A fine specimen of the
“Richmond darkey” of the old school-polite, flattering, with a venerable
head of gray wool, was the bartender, who mixed his juleps with a
flourish as if keeping time to music. “Haven't I waited on you befo',
sah? At Capon Springs? Sorry, sah, but tho't I knowed you when you come
in. Sorry, but glad to know you now, sah. If that julep don't suit you,
sah, throw it in my face.”

A friendly, restful, family sort of place, with music, a little mild
dancing, mostly performed by children, in the pavilion, driving and
riding-in short, peace in the midst of noble scenery. No display of
fashion, the artist soon discovered, and he said he longed to give
the pretty girls some instruction in the art of dress. Forbes was a
missionary of “style.” It hurt his sense of the fitness of things to see
women without it. He used to say that an ill-dressed woman would spoil
the finest landscape. For such a man, with an artistic feeling so
sensitive, the White Sulphur Springs is a natural goal. And he and his
friend hastened thither with as much speed as the Virginia railways,
whose time-tables are carefully adjusted to miss all connections,
permit.

“What do you think of a place,” he wrote Miss Lamont--the girl read me
a portion of his lively letter that summer at Saratoga--“into which
you come by a belated train at half-past eleven at night, find friends
waiting up for you in evening costume, are taken to a champagne supper
at twelve, get to your quarters at one, and have your baggage delivered
to you at two o'clock in the morning?” The friends were lodged in
“Paradise Row”--a whimsical name given to one of the quarters assigned
to single gentlemen. Put into these single-room barracks, which were
neat but exceedingly primitive in their accommodations, by hilarious
negro attendants who appeared to regard life as one prolonged lark, and
who avowed that there was no time of day or night when a mint-julep
or any other necessary of life would not be forthcoming at a moment's
warning, the beginning of their sojourn at “The White” took on an air
of adventure, and the two strangers had the impression of having dropped
into a garrison somewhere on the frontier. But when King stepped out
upon the gallery, in the fresh summer morning, the scene that met his
eyes was one of such peaceful dignity, and so different from any in
his experience, that he was aware that he had come upon an original
development of watering-place life.

The White Sulphur has been for the better part of a century, as
everybody knows, the typical Southern resort, the rendezvous of all
that was most characteristic in the society of the whole South, the
meeting-place of its politicians, the haunt of its belles, the arena of
gayety, intrigue, and fashion. If tradition is to be believed, here
in years gone by were concocted the measures that were subsequently
deployed for the government of the country at Washington, here historic
matches were made, here beauty had triumphs that were the talk of a
generation, here hearts were broken at a ball and mended in Lovers'
Walk, and here fortunes were nightly lost and won. It must have been in
its material conditions a primitive place in the days of its greatest
fame. Visitors came to it in their carriages and unwieldy four-horse
chariots, attended by troops of servants, making slow but most enjoyable
pilgrimages over the mountain roads, journeys that lasted a week or a
fortnight, and were every day enlivened by jovial adventure. They
came for the season. They were all of one social order, and needed no
introduction; those from Virginia were all related to each other, and
though life there was somewhat in the nature of a picnic, it had its
very well-defined and ceremonious code of etiquette. In the memory of
its old habitues it was at once the freest and the most aristocratic
assembly in the world. The hotel was small and its arrangements
primitive; a good many of the visitors had their own cottages, and the
rows of these cheap structures took their names from their occupants.
The Southern presidents, the senators, and statesmen, the rich planters,
lived in cottages which still have an historic interest in their memory.
But cottage life was never the exclusive affair that it is elsewhere;
the society was one body, and the hotel was the centre.

Time has greatly changed the White Sulphur; doubtless in its physical
aspect it never was so beautiful and attractive as it is today, but all
the modern improvements have not destroyed the character of the
resort, which possesses a great many of its primitive and old-time
peculiarities. Briefly the White is an elevated and charming mountain
region, so cool, in fact, especially at night, that the “season” is
practically limited to July and August, although I am not sure but a
quiet person, who likes invigorating air, and has no daughters to marry
off, would find it equally attractive in September and October, when
the autumn foliage is in its glory. In a green rolling interval, planted
with noble trees and flanked by moderate hills, stands the vast white
caravansary, having wide galleries and big pillars running round three
sides. The front and two sides are elevated, the galleries being
reached by flights of steps, and affording room underneath for the large
billiard and bar-rooms. From the hotel the ground slopes down to the
spring, which is surmounted by a round canopy on white columns, and
below is an opening across the stream to the race-track, the servants'
quarters, and a fine view of receding hills. Three sides of this
charming park are enclosed by the cottages and cabins, which back
against the hills, and are more or less embowered in trees. Most of
these cottages are built in blocks and rows, some single rooms, others
large enough to accommodate a family, but all reached by flights of
steps, all with verandas, and most of them connected by galleries.
Occasionally the forest trees have been left, and the galleries
built around them. Included in the premises are two churches, a
gambling-house, a couple of country stores, and a post-office. There
are none of the shops common at watering-places for the sale of
fancy articles, and, strange to say, flowers are not systematically
cultivated, and very few are ever to be had. The hotel has a vast
dining-room, besides the minor eating-rooms for children and nurses,
a large ballroom, and a drawing-room of imposing dimensions. Hotel and
cottages together, it is said, can lodge fifteen hundred guests.

The natural beauty of the place is very great, and fortunately there is
not much smart and fantastic architecture to interfere with it. I cannot
say whether the knowledge that Irene was in one of the cottages affected
King's judgment, but that morning, when he strolled to the upper part of
the grounds before breakfast, he thought he had never beheld a scene of
more beauty and dignity, as he looked over the mass of hotel buildings,
upon the park set with a wonderful variety of dark green foliage, upon
the elevated rows of galleried cottages marked by colonial simplicity,
and the soft contour of the hills, which satisfy the eye in their
delicate blending of every shade of green and brown. And after an
acquaintance of a couple of weeks the place seemed to him ravishingly
beautiful.

King was always raving about the White Sulphur after he came North, and
one never could tell how much his judgment was colored by his peculiar
experiences there. It was my impression that if he had spent those two
weeks on a barren rock in the ocean, with only one fair spirit for his
minister, he would have sworn that it was the most lovely spot on the
face of the earth. He always declared that it was the most friendly,
cordial society at this resort in the country. At breakfast he knew
scarcely any one in the vast dining-room, except the New Orleans
and Richmond friends with whom he had a seat at table. But their
acquaintance sufficed to establish his position. Before dinner-time he
knew half a hundred; in the evening his introductions had run up
into the hundreds, and he felt that he had potential friends in every
Southern city; and before the week was over there was not one of the
thousand guests he did not know or might not know. At his table he heard
Irene spoken of and her beauty commented on. Two or three days had
been enough to give her a reputation in a society that is exceedingly
sensitive to beauty. The men were all ready to do her homage, and the
women took her into favor as soon as they saw that Mr. Meigs, whose
social position was perfectly well known, was of her party. The society
of the White Sulphur seems perfectly easy of access, but the ineligible
will find that it is able, like that of Washington, to protect itself.
It was not without a little shock that King heard the good points, the
style, the physical perfections, of Irene so fully commented on, and
not without some alarm that he heard predicted for her a very successful
career as a belle.

Coming out from breakfast, the Benson party were encountered on the
gallery, and introductions followed. It was a trying five minutes for
King, who felt as guilty, as if the White Sulphur were private property
into which he had intruded without an invitation. There was in the
civility of Mr. Meigs no sign of an invitation. Mrs. Benson said she was
never so surprised in her life, and the surprise seemed not exactly
an agreeable one, but Mr. Benson looked a great deal more pleased than
astonished. The slight flush in Irene's face as she greeted him might
have been wholly due to the unexpectedness of the meeting. Some of the
gentlemen lounged off to the office region for politics and cigars, the
elderly ladies took seats upon the gallery, and the rest of the party
strolled down to the benches under the trees.

“So Miss Benson was expecting you!” said Mrs. Farquhar, who was walking
with King. It is enough to mention Mrs. Farquhar's name to an habitue of
the Springs. It is not so many years ago since she was a reigning belle,
and as noted for her wit and sparkling raillery as for her beauty. She
was still a very handsome woman, whose original cleverness had been
cultivated by a considerable experience of social life in this country
as well as in London and Paris.

“Was she? I'm sure I never told her I was coming here.”

“No, simple man. You were with her at Bar Harbor, and I suppose she
never mentioned to you that she was coming here?”

“But why did you think she expected me?”

“You men are too aggravatingly stupid. I never saw astonishment better
feigned. I dare say it imposed upon that other admirer of hers also.
Well, I like her, and I'm going to be good to her.” This meant a good
deal. Mrs. Farquhar was related to everybody in Virginia--that is,
everybody who was anybody before the war--and she could count at
that moment seventy-five cousins, some of them first and some of them
double-first cousins, at the White Sulphur. Mrs. Farquhar's remark meant
that all these cousins and all their friends the South over would stand
by Miss Benson socially from that moment.

The morning german had just begun in the ballroom. The gallery was
thronged with spectators, clustering like bees about the large windows,
and the notes of the band came floating out over the lawn, bringing
to the groups there the lulling impression that life is all a summer
holiday.

“And they say she is from Ohio. It is right odd, isn't it? but two or
three of the prettiest women here are from that State. There is Mrs.
Martin, sweet as a jacqueminot. I'd introduce you if her husband were
here. Ohio! Well, we get used to it. I should have known the father and
mother were corn-fed. I suppose you prefer the corn-feds to the Confeds.
But there's homespun and homespun. You see those under the trees yonder?
Georgia homespun! Perhaps you don't see the difference. I do.”

“I suppose you mean provincial.”

“Oh, dear, no. I'm provincial. It is the most difficult thing to be in
these leveling days. But I am not going to interest you in myself. I am
too unselfish. Your Miss Benson is a fine girl, and it does not matter
about her parents. Since you Yankees upset everything by the war, it is
really of no importance who one's mother is. But, mind, this is not my
opinion. I'm trying to adjust myself. You have no idea how reconstructed
I am.”

And with this Mrs. Farquhar went over to Miss Benson, and chatted for
a few moments, making herself particularly agreeable to Mr. Meigs, and
actually carried that gentleman off to the spring, and then as an escort
to her cottage, shaking her fan as she went away at Mr. King and Irene,
and saying, “It is a waste of time for you youngsters not to be in the
german.”

The german was just ended, and the participants were grouping themselves
on the gallery to be photographed, the usual custom for perpetuating the
memory of these exercises, which only take place every other morning.
And since something must be done, as there are only six nights for
dancing in the week, on the off mornings there are champagne and fruit
parties on the lawn.

It was not about the german, however, that King was thinking. He was
once more beside the woman he loved, and all the influences of summer
and the very spirit of this resort were in his favor. If I cannot win
her here, he was saying to himself, the Meigs is in it. They talked
about the journey, about Luray, where she had been, and about the
Bridge, and the abnormal gayety of the Springs.

“The people are all so friendly,” she said, “and strive so much to put
the stranger at his ease, and putting themselves out lest time hang
heavy on one's hands. They seem somehow responsible.”

“Yes,” said King, “the place is unique in that respect. I suppose it
is partly owing to the concentration of the company in and around the
hotel.”

“But the sole object appears to me to be agreeable, and make a real
social life. At other like places nobody seems to care what becomes of
anybody else.”

“Doubtless the cordiality and good feeling are spontaneous, though
something is due to manner, and a habit of expressing the feeling that
arises. Still, I do not expect to find any watering-place a paradise.
This must be vastly different from any other if it is not full of
cliques and gossip and envy underneath. But we do not go to a summer
resort to philosophize. A market is a market, you know.”

“I don't know anything about markets, and this cordiality may all be
on the surface, but it makes life very agreeable, and I wish our
Northerners would catch the Southern habit of showing sympathy where it
exists.”

“Well, I'm free to say that I like the place, and all its easy-going
ways, and I have to thank you for a new experience.”

“Me? Why so?”

“Oh, I wouldn't have come if it had not been for your suggestion--I mean
for your--your saying that you were coming here reminded me that it was
a place I ought to see.”

“I'm glad to have served you as a guide-book.”

“And I hope you are not sorry that I--”

At this moment Mrs. Benson and Mr. Meigs came down with the announcement
of the dinner hour, and the latter marched off with the ladies with a
“one-of-the-family” air.

The party did not meet again till evening in the great drawing-room. The
business at the White Sulphur is pleasure. And this is about the order
of proceedings: A few conscientious people take an early glass at the
spring, and later patronize the baths, and there is a crowd at the
post-office; a late breakfast; lounging and gossip on the galleries and
in the parlor; politics and old-fogy talk in the reading-room and in the
piazza corners; flirtation on the lawn; a german every other morning
at eleven; wine-parties under the trees; morning calls at the cottages;
servants running hither and thither with cooling drinks; the bar-room
not absolutely deserted and cheerless at any hour, day or night; dinner
from two to four; occasionally a riding-party; some driving; though
there were charming drives in every direction, few private carriages,
and no display of turn-outs; strolls in Lovers' Walk and in the pretty
hill paths; supper at eight, and then the full-dress assembly in the
drawing-room, and a “walk around” while the children have their hour in
the ballroom; the nightly dance, witnessed by a crowd on the veranda,
followed frequently by a private german and a supper given by some
lover of his kind, lasting till all hours in the morning; and while
the majority of the vast encampment reposes in slumber, some resolute
spirits are fighting the tiger, and a light gleaming from one cottage
and another shows where devotees of science are backing their opinion
of the relative value of chance bits of pasteboard, in certain
combinations, with a liberality and faith for which the world gives
them no credit. And lest their life should become monotonous, the
enterprising young men are continually organizing entertainments, mock
races, comical games. The idea seems to prevail that a summer resort
ought to be a place of enjoyment.

The White Sulphur is the only watering-place remaining in the United
States where there is what may be called an “assembly,” such as might
formerly be seen at Saratoga or at Ballston Spa in Irving's young days.
Everybody is in the drawing-room in the evening, and although, in the
freedom of the place, full dress is not exacted, the habit of parade in
full toilet prevails. When King entered the room the scene might well
be called brilliant, and even bewildering, so that in the maze of
beauty and the babble of talk he was glad to obtain the services of Mrs.
Farquhar as cicerone. Between the rim of people near the walls and the
elliptical centre was an open space for promenading, and in this beauty
and its attendant cavalier went round and round in unending show.
This is called the “tread-mill.” But for the seriousness of this frank
display, and the unflagging interest of the spectators, there would have
been an element of high comedy in it. It was an education to join a wall
group and hear the free and critical comments on the style, the dress,
the physical perfection, of the charming procession. When Mrs. Farquhar
and King had taken a turn or two, they stood on one side to enjoy the
scene.

“Did you ever see so many pretty girls together before? If you did,
don't you dare say so.”

“But at the North the pretty women are scattered in a thousand
places. You have here the whole South to draw on. Are they elected as
representatives from the various districts, Mrs. Farquhar?”

“Certainly. By an election that your clumsy device of the ballot is not
equal to. Why shouldn't beauty have a reputation? You see that old lady
in the corner? Well, forty years ago the Springs just raved over her;
everybody in the South knew her; I suppose she had an average of seven
proposals a week; the young men went wild about her, followed her,
toasted her, and fought duels for her possession--you don't like
duels?--why, she was engaged to three men at one time, and after all she
went off with a worthless fellow.”

“That seems to me rather a melancholy history.”

“Well, she is a most charming old lady; just as entertaining! I must
introduce you. But this is history. Now look! There's the belle of
Mobile, that tall, stately brunette. And that superb figure, you
wouldn't guess she is the belle of Selma. There is a fascinating girl.
What a mixture of languor and vivacity! Creole, you know; full blood.
She is the belle of New Orleans--or one of them. Oh! do you see that
Paris dress? I must look at it again when it comes around; she carries
it well, too--belle of Richmond. And, see there; there's one of
the prettiest girls in the South--belle of Macon. And that handsome
woman--Nashville?--Louisville? See, that's the new-comer from Ohio.”
 And so the procession went on, and the enumeration--belle of Montgomery,
belle of Augusta, belle of Charleston, belle of Savannah, belle of
Atlanta--always the belle of some place.

“No, I don't expect you to say that these are prettier than Northern
women; but just between friends, Mr. King, don't you think the North
might make a little more of their beautiful women? Yes, you are right;
she is handsome” (King was bowing to Irene, who was on the arm of Mr.
Meigs), “and has something besides beauty. I see what you mean” (King
had not intimated that he meant anything), “but don't you dare to say
it.”

“Oh, I'm quite subdued.”

“I wouldn't trust you. I suppose you Yankees cannot help your critical
spirit.”

“Critical? Why, I've heard more criticism in the last half-hour from
these spectators than in a year before. And--I wonder if you will let me
say it?”

“Say on.”

“Seems to me that the chief topic here is physical beauty--about the
shape, the style, the dress, of women, and whether this or that one is
well made and handsome.”

“Well, suppose beauty is worshiped in the South--we worship what we
have; we haven't much money now, you know. Would you mind my saying that
Mr. Meigs is a very presentable man?”

“You may say what you like about Mr. Meigs.”

“That's the reason I took him away this morning.”

“Thank you.”

“He is full of information, and so unobtrusive--”

“I hadn't noticed that.”

“And I think he ought to be encouraged. I'll tell you what you ought to
do, Mr. King: you ought to give a german. If you do not, I shall put Mr.
Meigs up to it--it is the thing to do here.”

“Mr. Meigs give a german!”--[Dance, cotillion--always lively. D.W.]

“Why not? You see that old beau there, the one smiling and bending
towards her as he walks with the belle of Macon? He does not look any
older than Mr. Meigs. He has been coming here for fifty years; he owns
up to sixty-five and the Mexican war; it's my firm belief that he was
out in 1812. Well, he has led the german here for years. You will find
Colonel Fane in the ballroom every night. Yes, I shall speak to Mr.
Meigs.”

The room was thinning out. King found himself in front of a row of
dowagers, whose tongues were still going about the departing beauties.
“No mercy there,” he heard a lady say to her companion; “that's a
jury for conviction every time.” What confidential communication Mrs.
Farquhar made to Mr. Meigs, King never knew, but he took advantage of
the diversion in his favor to lead Miss Benson off to the ballroom.




IX. OLD SWEET AND WHITE SULFUR

The days went by at the White Sulphur on the wings of incessant gayety.
Literally the nights were filled with music, and the only cares that
infested the day appeared in the anxious faces of the mothers as the
campaign became more intricate and uncertain. King watched this with the
double interest of spectator and player. The artist threw himself into
the melee with abandon, and pacified his conscience by an occasional
letter to Miss Lamont, in which he confessed just as many of his
conquests and defeats as he thought it would be good for her to know.

The colored people, who are a conspicuous part of the establishment,
are a source of never-failing interest and amusement. Every morning the
mammies and nurses with their charges were seated in a long, shining
row on a part of the veranda where there was most passing and repassing,
holding a sort of baby show, the social consequence of each one
depending upon the rank of the family who employed her, and the dress
of the children in her charge. High-toned conversation on these topics
occupied these dignified and faithful mammies, upon whom seemed to rest
to a considerable extent the maintenance of the aristocratic social
traditions. Forbes had heard that while the colored people of the South
had suspended several of the ten commandments, the eighth was especially
regarded as nonapplicable in the present state of society. But he was
compelled to revise this opinion as to the White Sulphur. Nobody ever
locked a door or closed a window. Cottages most remote were left for
hours open and without guard, miscellaneous articles of the toilet were
left about, trunks were not locked, waiters, chambermaids, porters,
washerwomen, were constantly coming and going, having access to the
rooms at all hours, and yet no guest ever lost so much as a hairpin or a
cigar. This fashion of trust and of honesty so impressed the artist that
he said he should make an attempt to have it introduced elsewhere. This
sort of esprit de corps among the colored people was unexpected, and
he wondered if they are not generally misunderstood by writers who
attribute to them qualities of various kinds that they do not possess.
The negro is not witty or consciously humorous, or epigrammatic. The
humor of his actions and sayings lies very much in a certain primitive
simplicity. Forbes couldn't tell, for instance, why he was amused at a
remark he heard one morning in the store. A colored girl sauntered in,
looking about vacantly. “You ain't got no cotton, is you?” “Why, of
course we have cotton.” “Well” (the girl only wanted an excuse to say
something), “I only ast, is you?”

Sports of a colonial and old English flavor that have fallen into disuse
elsewhere varied the life at the White. One day the gentlemen rode in
a mule-race, the slowest mule to win, and this feat was followed by an
exhibition of negro agility in climbing the greased pole and catching
the greased pig; another day the cavaliers contended on the green field
surrounded by a brilliant array of beauty and costume, as two Amazon
baseball nines, the one nine arrayed in yellow cambric frocks and
sun-bonnets, and the other in bright red gowns--the whiskers and big
boots and trousers adding nothing whatever to the illusion of the female
battle.

The two tables, King's and the Benson's, united in an expedition to the
Old Sweet, a drive of eighteen miles. Mrs. Farquhar arranged the affair,
and assigned the seats in the carriages. It is a very picturesque drive,
as are all the drives in this region, and if King did not enjoy it, it
was not because Mrs. Farquhar was not even more entertaining than usual.
The truth is that a young man in love is poor company for himself and
for everybody else. Even the object of his passion could not tolerate
him unless she returned it. Irene and Mr. Meigs rode in the carriage
in advance of his, and King thought the scenery about the tamest he had
ever seen, the roads bad, the horses slow. His ill-humor, however, was
concentrated on one spot; that was Mr. Meigs's back; he thought he had
never seen a more disagreeable back, a more conceited back. It ought to
have been a delightful day; in his imagination it was to be an eventful
day. Indeed, why shouldn't the opportunity come at the Old Sweet, at
the end of the drive?--there was something promising in the name. Mrs.
Farquhar was in a mocking mood all the way. She liked to go to the Old
Sweet, she said, because it was so intolerably dull; it was a sensation.
She thought, too, that it might please Miss Benson, there was such a
fitness in the thing--the old sweet to the Old Sweet. “And he is not so
very old either,” she added; “just the age young girls like. I should
think Miss Benson in danger--seriously, now--if she were three or four
years younger.”

The Old Sweet is, in fact, a delightful old-fashioned resort,
respectable and dull, with a pretty park, and a crystal pond that
stimulates the bather like a glass of champagne, and perhaps has the
property of restoring youth. King tried the spring, which he heard Mrs.
Farquhar soberly commending to Mr. Meigs; and after dinner he manoeuvred
for a half-hour alone with Irene. But the fates and the women were
against him. He had the mortification to see her stroll away with
Mr. Meigs to a distant part of the grounds, where they remained in
confidential discourse until it was time to return.

In the rearrangement of seats Mrs. Farquhar exchanged with Irene. Mrs.
Farquhar said that it was very much like going to a funeral each way. As
for Irene, she was in high, even feverish spirits, and rattled away in
a manner that convinced King that she was almost too happy to contain
herself.

Notwithstanding the general chaff, the singing, and the gayety of Irene,
the drive seemed to him intolerably long. At the half-way house, where
in the moonlight the horses drank from a shallow stream, Mr. Meigs came
forward to the carriage and inquired if Miss Benson was sufficiently
protected against the chilliness of the night. King had an impulse to
offer to change seats with him; but no, he would not surrender in the
face of the enemy. It would be more dignified to quietly leave the
Springs the next day.

It was late at night when the party returned. The carriage drove to the
Benson cottage; King helped Irene to alight, coolly bade her good-night,
and went to his barracks. But it was not a good night to sleep. He
tossed about, he counted every step of the late night birds on his
gallery; he got up and lighted a cigar, and tried dispassionately to
think the matter over. But thinking was of no use. He took pen and
paper; he would write a chill letter of farewell; he would write a manly
avowal of his passion; he would make such an appeal that no woman could
resist it. She must know, she did know--what was the use of writing? He
sat staring at the blank prospect. Great heavens! what would become
of his life if he lost the only woman in the world? Probably the world
would go on much the same. Why, listen to it! The band was playing on
the lawn at four o'clock in the morning. A party was breaking up after
a night of german and a supper, and the revelers were dispersing. The
lively tunes of “Dixie,” “Marching through Georgia,” and “Home, Sweet
Home,” awoke the echoes in all the galleries and corridors, and
filled the whole encampment with a sad gayety. Dawn was approaching.
Good-nights and farewells and laughter were heard, and the voice of a
wanderer explaining to the trees, with more or less broken melody, his
fixed purpose not to go home till morning.

Stanhope King might have had a better though still a sleepless night if
he had known that Mr. Meigs was packing his trunks at that hour to the
tune of “Home, Sweet Home,” and if he had been aware of the scene at the
Benson cottage after he bade Irene good-night. Mrs. Benson had a light
burning, and the noise of the carriage awakened her. Irene entered the
room, saw that her mother was awake, shut the door carefully, sat down
on the foot of the bed, said, “It's all over, mother,” and burst into
the tears of a long-repressed nervous excitement.

“What's over, child?” cried Mrs. Benson, sitting bolt-upright in bed.

“Mr. Meigs. I had to tell him that it couldn't be. And he is one of the
best men I ever knew.”

“You don't tell me you've gone and refused him, Irene?”

“Please don't scold me. It was no use. He ought to have seen that I did
not care for him, except as a friend. I'm so sorry!”

“You are the strangest girl I ever saw.” And Mrs. Benson dropped back on
the pillow again, crying herself now, and muttering, “I'm sure I don't
know what you do want.”

When King came out to breakfast he encountered Mr. Benson, who told
him that their friend Mr. Meigs had gone off that morning--had a sudden
business call to Boston. Mr. Benson did not seem to be depressed about
it. Irene did not appear, and King idled away the hours with his equally
industrious companion under the trees. There was no german that morning,
and the hotel band was going through its repertoire for the benefit of
a champagne party on the lawn. There was nothing melancholy about this
party; and King couldn't help saying to Mrs. Farquhar that it hardly
represented his idea of the destitution and depression resulting from
the war; but she replied that they must do something to keep up their
spirits.

“And I think,” said the artist, who had been watching, from the little
distance at which they sat, the table of the revelers, “that they will
succeed. Twenty-six bottles of champagne, and not many more guests! What
a happy people, to be able to enjoy champagne before twelve o'clock!”

“Oh, you never will understand us!” said Mrs. Farquhar; “there is
nothing spontaneous in you.”

“We do not begin to be spontaneous till after dinner,” said King.

“And then it is all calculated. Think of Mr. Forbes counting the
bottles! Such a dreadfully mercenary spirit! Oh, I have been North.
Because you are not so open as we are, you set up for being more
virtuous.”

“And you mean,” said King, “that frankness and impulse cover a multitude
of--”

“I don't mean anything of the sort. I just mean that conventionality
isn't virtue. You yourself confessed that you like the Southern openness
right much, and you like to come here, and you like the Southern people
as they are at home.”

“Well?”

“And now will you tell me, Mr. Prim, why it is that almost all Northern
people who come South to live become more Southern than the Southerners
themselves; and that almost all Southern people who go North to live
remain just as Southern as ever?”

“No. Nor do I understand any more than Dr. Johnson did why the Scotch,
who couldn't scratch a living at home, and came up to London, always
kept on bragging about their native land and abused the metropolis.”

This sort of sparring went on daily, with the result of increasing
friendship between the representatives of the two geographical sections,
and commonly ended with the declaration on Mrs. Farquhar's part that
she should never know that King was not born in the South except for
his accent; and on his part that if Mrs. Farquhar would conceal her
delightful Virginia inflection she would pass everywhere at the North
for a Northern woman.

“I hear,” she said, later, as they sat alone, “that Mr. Meigs has beat a
retreat, saving nothing but his personal baggage. I think Miss Benson
is a great goose. Such a chance for an establishment and a position! You
didn't half appreciate him.”

“I'm afraid I did not.”

“Well, it is none of my business; but I hope you understand the
responsibility of the situation. If you do not, I want to warn you about
one thing: don't go strolling off before sunset in the Lovers' Walk. It
is the most dangerous place. It is a fatal place. I suppose every turn
in it, every tree that has a knoll at the foot where two persons can
sit, has witnessed a tragedy, or, what is worse, a comedy. There are
legends enough about it to fill a book. Maybe there is not a Southern
woman living who has not been engaged there once at least. I'll tell you
a little story for a warning. Some years ago there was a famous belle
here who had the Springs at her feet, and half a dozen determined
suitors. One of them, who had been unable to make the least impression
on her heart, resolved to win her by a stratagem. Walking one evening
on the hill with her, the two stopped just at a turn in the walk--I
can show you the exact spot, with a chaperon--and he fell into earnest
discourse with her. She was as cool and repellant as usual. Just then
he heard a party approaching; his chance had come. The moment the party
came in sight he suddenly kissed her. Everybody saw it. The witnesses
discreetly turned back. The girl was indignant. But the deed was done.
In half an hour the whole Springs would know it. She was compromised.
No explanations could do away with the fact that she had been kissed in
Lovers' Walk. But the girl was game, and that evening the engagement was
announced in the drawing-room. Isn't that a pretty story?”

However much Stanhope might have been alarmed at this recital, he
betrayed nothing of his fear that evening when, after walking to the
spring with Irene, the two sauntered along and unconsciously, as it
seemed, turned up the hill into that winding path which has been trodden
by generations of lovers with loitering steps--steps easy to take and
so hard to retrace! It is a delightful forest, the walk winding about
on the edge of the hill, and giving charming prospects of intervales,
stream, and mountains. To one in the mood for a quiet hour with nature,
no scene could be more attractive.

The couple walked on, attempting little conversation, both apparently
prepossessed and constrained. The sunset was spoken of, and when Irene
at length suggested turning back, that was declared to be King's object
in ascending the hill to a particular point; but whether either of them
saw the sunset, or would have known it from a sunrise, I cannot say. The
drive to the Old Sweet was pleasant. Yes, but rather tiresome. Mr. Meigs
had gone away suddenly. Yes; Irene was sorry his business should have
called him away. Was she very sorry? She wouldn't lie awake at night
over it, but he was a good friend. The time passed very quickly here.
Yes; one couldn't tell how it went; the days just melted away; the two
weeks seemed like a day. They were going away the next day. King said he
was going also.

“And,” he added, as if with an effort, “when the season is over, Miss
Benson, I am going to settle down to work.”

“I'm glad of that,” she said, turning upon him a face glowing with
approval.

“Yes, I have arranged to go on with practice in my uncle's office. I
remember what you said about a dilettante life.”

“Why, I never said anything of the kind.”

“But you looked it. It is all the same.”

They had come to the crown of the hill, and stood looking over the
intervales to the purple mountains. Irene was deeply occupied in tying
up with grass a bunch of wild flowers. Suddenly he seized her hand.

“Irene!”

“No, no,” she cried, turning away. The flowers dropped from her hand.

“You must listen, Irene. I love you--I love you.”

She turned her face towards him; her lips trembled; her eyes were full
of tears; there was a great look of wonder and tenderness in her face.

“Is it all true?”

She was in his arms. He kissed her hair, her eyes--ah me! it is the old
story. It had always been true. He loved her from the first, at Fortress
Monroe, every minute since. And she--well, perhaps she could learn to
love him in time, if he was very good; yes, maybe she had loved him
a little at Fortress Monroe. How could he? what was there in her to
attract him? What a wonder it was that she could tolerate him! What
could she see in him?

So this impossible thing, this miracle, was explained? No, indeed!
It had to be inquired into and explained over and over again, this
absolutely new experience of two people loving each other.

She could speak now of herself, of her doubt that he could know his own
heart and be stronger than the social traditions, and would not mind, as
she thought he did at Newport--just a little bit--the opinions of other
people. I do not by any means imply that she said all this bluntly, or
that she took at all the tone of apology; but she contrived, as a woman
can without saying much, to let him see why she had distrusted, not the
sincerity, but the perseverance of his love. There would never be any
more doubt now. What a wonder it all is.

The two parted--alas! alas! till supper-time!

I don't know why scoffers make so light of these partings--at the foot
of the main stairs of the hotel gallery, just as Mrs. Farquhar was
descending. Irene's face was radiant as she ran away from Mrs. Farquhar.

“Bless you, my children! I see my warning was in vain, Mr. King. It is
a fatal walk. It always was in our family. Oh, youth! youth!” A shade of
melancholy came over her charming face as she turned alone towards the
spring.




X. LONG BRANCH, OCEAN GROVE

Mrs. Farquhar, Colonel Fane, and a great many of their first and second
cousins were at the station the morning the Bensons and King and
Forbes departed for the North. The gallant colonel was foremost in his
expressions of regret, and if he had been the proprietor of Virginia,
and of the entire South added thereto, and had been anxious to close
out the whole lot on favorable terms to the purchaser, he would not
have exhibited greater solicitude as to the impression the visitors had
received. This solicitude was, however, wholly in his manner--and it is
the traditional-manner that has nearly passed away--for underneath all
this humility it was plain to be seen that the South had conferred a
great favor, sir, upon these persons by a recognition of their merits.

“I am not come to give you good-by, but au revoir,” said Mrs. Farquhar
to Stanhope and Irene, who were standing apart. “I hate to go North
in the summer, it is so hot and crowded and snobbish, but I dare say I
shall meet you somewhere, for I confess I don't like to lose sight of so
much happiness. No, no, Miss Benson, you need not thank me, even with a
blush; I am not responsible for this state of things. I did all I could
to warn you, and I tell you now that my sympathy is with Mr. Meigs,
who never did either of you any harm, and I think has been very badly
treated.”

“I don't know any one, Mrs. Farquhar, who is so capable of repairing his
injuries as yourself,” said King.

“Thank you; I'm not used to such delicate elephantine compliments. It
is just like a man, Miss Benson, to try to kill two birds with one
stone--get rid of a rival by sacrificing a useless friend. All the same,
au revoir.”

“We shall be glad to see you,” replied Irene, “you know that, wherever
we are; and we will try to make the North tolerable for you.”

“Oh, I shall hide my pride and go. If you were not all so rich up there!
Not that I object to wealth; I enjoy it. I think I shall take to that
old prayer: 'May my lot be with the rich in this world, and with the
South in the next!'”

I suppose there never was such a journey as that from the White Sulphur
to New York. If the Virginia scenery had seemed to King beautiful when
he came down, it was now transcendently lovely. He raved about it, when
I saw him afterwards--the Blue Ridge, the wheat valleys, the commercial
advantages, the mineral resources of the State, the grand old
traditional Heaven knows what of the Old Dominion; as to details he was
obscure, and when I pinned him down, he was not certain which route
they took. It is my opinion that the most costly scenery in the world is
thrown away upon a pair of newly plighted lovers.

The rest of the party were in good spirits. Even Mrs. Benson, who was
at first a little bewildered at the failure of her admirably planned
campaign, accepted the situation with serenity.

“So you are engaged!” she said, when Irene went to her with the story of
the little affair in Lovers' Walk. “I suppose he'll like it. He always
took a fancy to Mr. King. No, I haven't any objections, Irene, and I
hope you'll be happy. Mr. King was always very polite to me--only he
didn't never seem exactly like our folks. We only want you to be happy.”
 And the old lady declared with a shaky voice, and tears streaming down
her cheeks, that she was perfectly happy if Irene was.

Mr. Meigs, the refined, the fastidious, the man of the world, who had
known how to adapt himself perfectly to Mrs. Benson, might nevertheless
have been surprised at her implication that he was “like our folks.”

At the station in Jersey City--a place suggestive of love and romance
and full of tender associations--the party separated for a few days, the
Bensons going to Saratoga, and King accompanying Forbes to Long Branch,
in pursuance of an agreement which, not being in writing, he was unable
to break. As the two friends went in the early morning down to the coast
over the level salt meadows, cut by bayous and intersected by canals,
they were curiously reminded both of the Venice lagoons and the plains
of the Teche; and the artist went into raptures over the colors of the
landscape, which he declared was Oriental in softness and blending.
Patriotic as we are, we still turn to foreign lands for our comparisons.

Long Branch and its adjuncts were planned for New York excursionists who
are content with the ocean and the salt air, and do not care much for
the picturesque. It can be described in a phrase: a straight line of
sandy coast with a high bank, parallel to it a driveway, and an endless
row of hotels and cottages. Knowing what the American seaside cottage
and hotel are, it is unnecessary to go to Long Branch to have an
accurate picture of it in the mind. Seen from the end of the pier, the
coast appears to be all built up--a thin, straggling city by the sea.
The line of buildings is continuous for two miles, from Long Branch to
Elberon; midway is the West End, where our tourists were advised to
go as the best post of observation, a medium point of respectability
between the excursion medley of one extremity and the cottage refinement
of the other, and equally convenient to the races, which attract crowds
of metropolitan betting men and betting women. The fine toilets of
these children of fortune are not less admired than their fashionable
race-course manners. The satirist who said that Atlantic City is typical
of Philadelphia, said also that Long Branch is typical of New York. What
Mr. King said was that the satirist was not acquainted with the good
society of either place.

All the summer resorts get somehow a certain character, but it is not
easy always to say how it is produced. The Long Branch region was
the resort of politicians, and of persons of some fortune who connect
politics with speculation. Society, which in America does not identify
itself with politics as it does in England, was not specially attracted
by the newspaper notoriety of the place, although, fashion to some
extent declared in favor of Elberon.

In the morning the artist went up to the pier at the bathing hour.
Thousands of men, women, and children were tossing about in the lively
surf promiscuously, revealing to the spectators such forms as Nature had
given them, with a modest confidence in her handiwork. It seemed to the
artist, who was a student of the human figure, that many of these people
would not have bathed in public if Nature had made them self-conscious.
All down the shore were pavilions and bath-houses, and the scene at a
distance was not unlike that when the water is occupied by schools of
leaping mackerel. An excursion steamer from New York landed at the
pier. The passengers were not of any recognized American type, but mixed
foreign races a crowd of respectable people who take their rare holidays
rather seriously, and offer little of interest to an artist. The boats
that arrive at night are said to bring a less respectable cargo.

It is a pleasant walk or drive down to Elberon when there is a
sea-breeze, especially if there happen to be a dozen yachts in the
offing. Such elegance as this watering-place has lies in this direction;
the Elberon is a refined sort of hotel, and has near it a group of
pretty cottages, not too fantastic for holiday residences, and even the
“greeny-yellowy” ones do not much offend, for eccentricities of color
are toned down by the sea atmosphere. These cottages have excellent
lawns set with brilliant beds of flowers; and the turf rivals that of
Newport; but without a tree or shrub anywhere along the shore the aspect
is too unrelieved and photographically distinct. Here as elsewhere the
cottage life is taking the place of hotel life.

There were few handsome turn-outs on the main drive, and perhaps the
popular character of the place was indicated by the use of omnibuses
instead of carriages. For, notwithstanding Elberon and such fashion as
is there gathered, Long Branch lacks “style.” After the White Sulphur,
it did not seem to King alive with gayety, nor has it any society. In
the hotel parlors there is music in the evenings, but little dancing
except by children. Large women, offensively dressed, sit about the
veranda, and give a heavy and “company” air to the drawing-rooms. No,
the place is not gay. The people come here to eat, to bathe, to take the
air; and these are reasons enough for being here. Upon the artist, alert
for social peculiarities, the scene made little impression, for to an
artist there is a limit to the interest of a crowd showily dressed,
though they blaze with diamonds.

It was in search of something different from this that King and Forbes
took the train and traveled six miles to Asbury Park and Ocean Grove.
These great summer settlements are separated by a sheet of fresh water
three-quarters of a mile long; its sloping banks are studded with pretty
cottages, its surface is alive with boats gay with awnings of red and
blue and green, and seats of motley color, and is altogether a fairy
spectacle. Asbury Park is the worldly correlative of Ocean Grove, and
esteems itself a notch above it in social tone. Each is a city of small
houses, and each is teeming with life, but Ocean Grove, whose centre
is the camp-meeting tabernacle, lodges its devotees in tents as well as
cottages, and copies the architecture of Oak Bluffs. The inhabitants
of the two cities meet on the two-mile-long plank promenade by the sea.
Perhaps there is no place on the coast that would more astonish the
foreigner than Ocean Grove, and if he should describe it faithfully he
would be unpopular with its inhabitants. He would be astonished at the
crowds at the station, the throngs in the streets, the shops and stores
for supplying the wants of the religious pilgrims, and used as he might
be to the promiscuous bathing along our coast, he would inevitably
comment upon the freedom existing here. He would see women in their
bathing dresses, wet and clinging, walking in the streets of the town,
and he would read notices posted up by the camp-meeting authorities
forbidding women so clad to come upon the tabernacle ground. He would
also read placards along the beach explaining the reason why decency in
bathing suits is desirable, and he would wonder why such notices should
be necessary. If, however, he walked along the shore at bathing times he
might be enlightened, and he would see besides a certain simplicity of
social life which sophisticated Europe has no parallel for. A
peculiar custom here is sand-burrowing. To lie in the warm sand, which
accommodates itself to any position of the body, and listen to the dash
of the waves, is a dreamy and delightful way of spending a summer day.
The beach for miles is strewn with these sand-burrowers in groups of two
or three or half a dozen, or single figures laid out like the effigies
of Crusaders. One encounters these groups sprawling in all attitudes,
and frequently asleep in their promiscuous beds. The foreigner is forced
to see all this, because it is a public exhibition. A couple in bathing
suits take a dip together in the sea, and then lie down in the sand. The
artist proposed to make a sketch of one of these primitive couples, but
it was impossible to do so, because they lay in a trench which they
had scooped in the sand two feet deep, and had hoisted an umbrella over
their heads. The position was novel and artistic, but beyond the reach
of the artist. It was a great pity, because art is never more agreeable
than when it concerns itself with domestic life.

While this charming spectacle was exhibited at the beach, afternoon
service was going on in the tabernacle, and King sought that in
preference. The vast audience under the canopy directed its eyes to a
man on the platform, who was violently gesticulating and shouting at the
top of his voice. King, fresh from the scenes of the beach, listened a
long time, expecting to hear some close counsel on the conduct of life,
but he heard nothing except the vaguest emotional exhortation. By this
the audience were apparently unmoved, for it was only when the preacher
paused to get his breath on some word on which he could dwell by reason
of its vowels, like w-o-r-l-d or a-n-d, that he awoke any response from
his hearers. The spiritual exercise of prayer which followed was even
more of a physical demonstration, and it aroused more response. The
officiating minister, kneeling at the desk, gesticulated furiously,
doubled up his fists and shook them on high, stretched out both arms,
and pounded the pulpit. Among people of his own race King had never
before seen anything like this, and he went away a sadder if not a wiser
man, having at least learned one lesson of charity--never again to speak
lightly of a negro religious meeting.

This vast city of the sea has many charms, and is the resort of
thousands of people, who find here health and repose. But King, who was
immensely interested in it all as one phase of American summer life, was
glad that Irene was not at Ocean Grove.




XI. SARATOGA

It was the 22d of August, and the height of the season at Saratoga.
Familiar as King had been with these Springs, accustomed as the artist
was to foreign Spas, the scene was a surprise to both. They had been
told that fashion had ceased to patronize it, and that its old-time
character was gone. But Saratoga is too strong for the whims of fashion;
its existence does not depend upon its decrees; it has reached the point
where it cannot be killed by the inroads of Jew or Gentile. In ceasing
to be a society centre, it has become in a manner metropolitan; for the
season it is no longer a provincial village, but the meeting-place of
as mixed and heterogeneous a throng as flows into New York from all the
Union in the autumn shopping period.

It was race week, but the sporting men did not give Saratoga their
complexion. It was convention time, but except in the hotel corridors
politicians were not the feature of the place. One of the great hotels
was almost exclusively occupied by the descendants of Abraham, but the
town did not at all resemble Jerusalem. Innumerable boarding-houses
swarmed with city and country clergymen, who have a well-founded
impression that the waters of the springs have a beneficent relation to
the bilious secretions of the year, but the resort had not an oppressive
air of sanctity. Nearly every prominent politician in the State and a
good many from other States registered at the hotels, but no one seemed
to think that the country was in danger. Hundreds of men and women were
there because they had been there every year for thirty or forty years
back, and they have no doubt that their health absolutely requires a
week at Saratoga; yet the village has not the aspect of a sanitarium.
The hotel dining-rooms and galleries were thronged with large,
overdressed women who glittered with diamonds and looked uncomfortable
in silks and velvets, and Broadway was gay with elegant equipages, but
nobody would go to Saratoga to study the fashions. Perhaps the most
impressive spectacle in this lowly world was the row of millionaires
sunning themselves every morning on the piazza of the States, solemn men
in black broadcloth and white hats, who said little, but looked rich;
visitors used to pass that way casually, and the townspeople regarded
them with a kind of awe, as if they were the king-pins of the whole
social fabric; but even these magnates were only pleasing incidents in
the kaleidoscopic show.

The first person King encountered on the piazza of the Grand Union was
not the one he most wished to see, although it could never be otherwise
than agreeable to meet his fair cousin, Mrs. Bartlett Glow. She was in
a fresh morning toilet, dainty, comme il faut, radiant, with that
unobtrusive manner of “society” which made the present surroundings,
appear a trifle vulgar to King, and to his self-disgust forced upon him
the image of Mrs. Benson.

“You here?” was his abrupt and involuntary exclamation.

“Yes--why not?” And then she added, as if from the Newport point of view
some explanation were necessary: “My husband thinks he must come here
for a week every year to take the waters; it's an old habit, and I find
it amusing for a few days. Of course there is nobody here. Will you take
me to the spring? Yes, Congress. I'm too old to change. If I believed
the pamphlets the proprietors write about each other's springs I should
never go to either of them.”

Mrs. Bartlett Glow was not alone in saying that nobody was there. There
were scores of ladies at each hotel who said the same thing, and who
accounted for their own presence there in the way she did. And they
were not there at all in the same way they would be later at Lenox. Mrs.
Pendragon, of New Orleans, who was at the United States, would have said
the same thing, remembering the time when the Southern colony made a
very distinct impression upon the social life of the place; and the
Ashleys, who had put up at the Congress Hall in company with an
old friend, a returned foreign minister, who stuck to the old
traditions--even the Ashleys said they were only lookers-on at the
pageant.

Paying their entrance, and passing through the turnstile in the pretty
pavilion gate, they stood in the Congress Spring Park. The band was
playing in the kiosk; the dew still lay on the flowers and the green
turf; the miniature lake sparkled in the sun. It is one of the most
pleasing artificial scenes in the world; to be sure, nature set the
great pine-trees on the hills, and made the graceful little valley, but
art and exquisite taste have increased the apparent size of the small
plot of ground, and filled it with beauty. It is a gem of a place with a
character of its own, although its prettiness suggests some foreign
Spa. Groups of people, having taken the water, were strolling about the
graveled paths, sitting on the slopes overlooking the pond, or wandering
up the glen to the tiny deer park.

“So you have been at the White Sulphur?” said Mrs. Glow. “How did you
like it?”

“Immensely. It's the only place left where there is a congregate social
life.”

“You mean provincial life. Everybody knows everybody else.”

“Well,” King retorted, with some spirit, “it is not a place where people
pretend not to know each other, as if their salvation depended on it.”

“Oh, I see; hospitable, frank, cordial-all that. Stanhope, do you know,
I think you are a little demoralized this summer. Did you fall in love
with a Southern belle? Who was there?”

“Well, all the South, pretty much. I didn't fall in love with all the
belles; we were there only two weeks. Oh! there was a Mrs. Farquhar
there.”

“Georgiana Randolph! Georgie! How did she look? We were at Madame
Sequin's together, and a couple of seasons in Paris. Georgie! She was
the handsomest, the wittiest, the most fascinating woman I ever saw. I
hope she didn't give you a turn?”

“Oh, no. But we were very good friends. She is a very handsome
woman--perhaps you would expect me to say handsome still; but that seems
a sort of treason to her mature beauty.”

“And who else?”

“Oh, the Storbes from New Orleans, the Slifers from Mobile--no end of
people--some from Philadelphia--and Ohio.”

“Ohio? Those Bensons!” said she, turning sharply on him.

“Yes, those Bensons, Penelope. Why not?”

“Oh, nothing. It's a free country. I hope, Stanhope, you didn't
encourage her. You might make her very unhappy.”

“I trust not,” said King stoutly. “We are engaged.”

“Engaged!” repeated Mrs. Glow, in a tone that implied a whole world of
astonishment and improbability.

“Yes, and you are just in time to congratulate us. There they are!” Mr.
Benson, Mrs. Benson, and Irene were coming down the walk from the deer
park. King turned to meet them, but Mrs. Glow was close at his side, and
apparently as pleased at seeing them again as the lover. Nothing
could be more charming than the grace and welcome she threw into her
salutations. She shook hands with Mr. Benson; she was delighted to
meet Mrs. Benson again, and gave her both her little hands; she almost
embraced Irene, placed a hand on each shoulder, kissed her on the cheek,
and said something in a low voice that brought the blood to the girl's
face and suffused her eyes with tenderness.

When the party returned to the hotel the two women were walking lovingly
arm in arm, and King was following after, in the more prosaic atmosphere
of Cyrusville, Ohio. The good old lady began at once to treat King as
one of the family; she took his arm, and leaned heavily on it, as
they walked, and confided to him all her complaints. The White Sulphur
waters, she said, had not done her a mite of good; she didn't know
but she'd oughter see a doctor, but he said that it warn't nothing but
indigestion. Now the White Sulphur agreed with Irene better than any
other place, and I guess that I know the reason why, Mr. King, she said,
with a faintly facetious smile. Meantime Mrs. Glow was talking to Irene
on the one topic that a maiden is never weary of, her lover; and so
adroitly mingled praises of him with flattery of herself that the girl's
heart went out to her in entire trust.

“She is a charming girl,” said Mrs. Glow to King, later. “She needs a
little forming, but that will be easy when she is separated from her
family. Don't interrupt me. I like her. I don't say I like it. But if
you will go out of your set, you might do a great deal worse. Have you
written to your uncle and to your aunt?”

“No; I don't know why, in a matter wholly personal to myself, I should
call a family council. You represent the family completely, Penelope.”

“Yes. Thanks to my happening to be here. Well, I wouldn't write to them
if I were you. It's no use to disturb the whole connection now. By the
way, Imogene Cypher was at Newport after you left; she is more beautiful
than ever--just lovely; no other girl there had half the attention.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said King, who did not fancy the drift their
conversation was taking. “I hope she will make a good match. Brains are
not necessary, you know.”

“Stanhope, I never said that--never. I might have said she wasn't a bas
bleu. No more is she. But she has beauty, and a good temper, and money.
It isn't the cleverest women who make the best wives, sir.”

“Well, I'm not objecting to her being a wife. Only it does not follow
that, because my uncle and aunts are in love with her, I should want to
marry her.”

“I said nothing about marriage, my touchy friend. I am not advising
you to be engaged to two women at the same time. And I like Irene
immensely.”

It was evident that she had taken a great fancy to the girl. They were
always together; it seemed to happen so, and King could hardly admit
to himself that Mrs. Glow was de trop as a third. Mr. Bartlett Glow
was very polite to King and his friend, and forever had one excuse and
another for taking them off with him--the races or a lounge about town.
He showed them one night, I am sorry to say, the inside of the Temple of
Chance and its decorous society, its splendid buffet, the quiet tables
of rouge et noir, and the highly respectable attendants--aged men,
whitehaired, in evening costume, devout and almost godly in appearance,
with faces chastened to resignation and patience with a wicked world,
sedate and venerable as the deacons in a Presbyterian church. He was
lonesome and wanted company, and, besides, the women liked to be by
themselves occasionally.

One might be amused at the Saratoga show without taking an active part
in it, and indeed nobody did seem to take a very active part in it.
Everybody was looking on. People drove, visited the springs--in a
vain expectation that excessive drinking of the medicated waters would
counteract the effect of excessive gormandizing at the hotels--sat about
in the endless rows of armchairs on the piazzas, crowded the heavily
upholstered parlors, promenaded in the corridors, listened to the music
in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and thronged the stairways
and passages, and blocked up the entrance to the ballrooms. Balls? Yes,
with dress de rigueur, many beautiful women in wonderful toilets, a few
debutantes, a scarcity of young men, and a delicious band--much better
music than at the White Sulphur.

And yet no society. But a wonderful agglomeration, the artist was
saying. It is a robust sort of place. If Newport is the queen of the
watering-places, this is the king. See how well fed and fat the
people are, men and women large and expansive, richly dressed,
prosperous--looking! What a contrast to the family sort of life at the
White Sulphur! Here nobody, apparently, cares for anybody else--not
much; it is not to be expected that people should know each other in
such a heterogeneous concern; you see how comparatively few greetings
there are on the piazzas and in the parlors. You notice, too, that the
types are not so distinctively American as at the Southern resort--full
faces, thick necks--more like Germans than Americans. And then the
everlasting white hats. And I suppose it is not certain that every man
in a tall white hat is a politician, or a railway magnate, or a sporting
man.

These big hotels are an epitome of expansive, gorgeous American life. At
the Grand Union, King was No. 1710, and it seemed to him that he walked
the length of the town to get to his room after ascending four stories.
He might as well, so far as exercise was concerned, have taken an
apartment outside. And the dining-room. Standing at the door, he had a
vista of an eighth of a mile of small tables, sparkling with brilliant
service of glass and porcelain, chandeliers and frescoed ceiling. What
perfect appointments! what well-trained waiters!--perhaps they were not
waiters, for he was passed from one “officer” to another “officer”
 down to his place. At the tables silent couples and restrained family
parties, no hilarity, little talking; and what a contrast this was to
the happy-go-lucky service and jollity of the White Sulphur! Then the
interior parks of the United States and the Grand Union, with corridors
and cottages, close-clipped turf, banks of flowers, forest trees,
fountains, and at night, when the band filled all the air with seductive
strains, the electric and the colored lights, gleaming through the
foliage and dancing on fountains and greensward, made a scene of
enchantment. Each hotel was a village in itself, and the thousands of
guests had no more in common than the frequenters of New York hotels and
theatres. But what a paradise for lovers!

“It would be lonesome enough but for you, Irene,” Stanhope said, as
they sat one night on the inner piazza of the Grand Union, surrendering
themselves to all the charms of the scene.

“I love it all,” she said, in the full tide of her happiness.

On another evening they were at the illumination of the Congress Spring
Park. The scene seemed the creation of magic. By a skillful arrangement
of the colored globes an illusion of vastness was created, and the
little enclosure, with its glowing lights, was like the starry heavens
for extent. In the mass of white globes and colored lanterns of
paper the eye was deceived as to distances. The allies stretched
away interminably, the pines seemed enormous, and the green hillsides
mountainous. Nor were charming single effects wanting. Down the winding
walk from the hill, touched by a distant electric light, the loitering
people, in couples and in groups, seemed no more in real life than
the supernumeraries in a scene at the opera. Above, in the illuminated
foliage, were doubtless a castle and a broad terrace, with a row of
statues, and these gay promenaders were ladies and cavaliers in an
old-time masquerade. The gilded kiosk on the island in the centre of the
miniature lake and the fairy bridge that leads to it were outlined
by colored globes; and the lake, itself set about with brilliants,
reflected kiosk and bridge and lights, repeating a hundredfold the
fantastic scene, while from their island retreat the band sent out
through the illumined night strains of sentiment and gayety and sadness.
In the intervals of the music there was silence, as if the great throng
were too deeply enjoying this feast of the senses to speak. Perhaps a
foreigner would have been impressed with the decorous respectability of
the assembly; he would have remarked that there were no little tables
scattered about the ground, no boys running about with foaming mugs of
beer, no noise, no loud talking; and how restful to all the senses!

Mrs. Bartlett Glow had the whim to devote herself to Mrs. Benson, and
was repaid by the acquisition of a great deal of information concerning
the social and domestic, life in Cyrusville, Ohio, and the maternal
ambition for Irene. Stanhope and Irene sat a little apart from the
others, and gave themselves up to the witchery of the hour. It would
not be easy to reproduce in type all that they said; and what was most
important to them, and would be most interesting to the reader, are the
things they did not say--the half exclamations, the delightful silences,
the tones, the looks that are the sign language of lovers. It was Irene
who first broke the spell of this delightful mode of communication, and
in a pause of the music said, “Your cousin has been telling me of your
relatives in New York, and she told me more of yourself than you ever
did.”

“Very likely. Trust your friends for that. I hope she gave me a good
character.”

“Oh, she has the greatest admiration for you, and she said the family
have the highest expectations of your career. Why didn't you tell me you
were the child of such hopes? It half frightened me.”

“It must be appalling. What did she say of my uncle and aunts?”

“Oh, I cannot tell you, except that she raised an image in my mind of an
awful vision of ancient family and exclusiveness, the most fastidious,
delightful, conventional people, she said, very old family, looked down
upon Washington Irving, don't you know, because he wrote. I suppose she
wanted to impress me with the value of the prize I've drawn, dear. But I
should like you just as well if your connections had not looked down on
Irving. Are they so very high and mighty?”

“Oh, dear, no. Much like other people. My aunts are the dearest old
ladies, just a little nearsighted, you know, about seeing people that
are not--well, of course, they live in a rather small world. My uncle is
a bachelor, rather particular, not what you would call a genial old man;
been abroad a good deal, and moved mostly in our set; sometimes I think
he cares more for his descent than for his position at the bar, which is
a very respectable one, by the way. You know what an old bachelor is
who never has had anybody to shake him out of his contemplation of his
family?”

“Do you think,” said Irene, a little anxiously, letting her hand rest a
moment upon Stanhope's, “that they will like poor little me? I believe I
am more afraid of the aunts than of the uncle. I don't believe they will
be as nice as your cousin.”

“Of course they will like you. Everybody likes you. The aunts are just
a little old-fashioned, that is all. Habit has made them draw a social
circle with a small radius. Some have one kind of circle, some another.
Of course my aunts are sorry for any one who is not descended from the
Van Schlovenhovens--the old Van Schlovenhoven had the first brewery of
the colony in the time of Peter Stuyvesant. In New York it's a family
matter, in Philadelphia it's geographical. There it's a question whether
you live within the lines of Chestnut Street and Spruce Street--outside
of these in the city you are socially impossible: Mrs. Cortlandt told
me that two Philadelphia ladies who had become great friends at a summer
resort--one lived within and the other without the charmed lines--went
back to town together in the autumn. At the station when they parted,
the 'inside' lady said to the other: 'Good-by. It has been such
a pleasure to know you! I suppose I shall see you sometimes at
Moneymaker's!' Moneymaker's is the Bon Marche of Philadelphia.”

The music ceased; the band were hurrying away; the people all over the
grounds were rising to go, lingering a little, reluctant to leave the
enchanting scene. Irene wished, with a sigh, that it might never end;
unreal as it was, it was more native to her spirit than that future
which her talk with Stanhope had opened to her contemplation. An
ill-defined apprehension possessed her in spite of the reassuring
presence of her lover and her perfect confidence in the sincerity of
his passion; and this feeling was somehow increased by the appearance of
Mrs. Glow with her mother; she could not shake off the uneasy suggestion
of the contrast.

At the hour when the ladies went to their rooms the day was just
beginning for a certain class of the habitues. The parlors were nearly
deserted, and few chairs were occupied on the piazzas, but the ghosts
of another generation seemed to linger, especially in the offices and
barroom. Flitting about were to be seen the social heroes who had a
notoriety thirty and forty years ago in the newspapers. This dried-up
old man in a bronze wig, scuffling along in list slippers, was a famous
criminal lawyer in his day; this gentleman, who still wears an air
of gallantry, and is addressed as General, had once a reputation for
successes in the drawing-room as well as on the field of Mars; here is
a genuine old beau, with the unmistakable self-consciousness of one who
has been a favorite of the sex, but who has slowly decayed in the midst
of his cosmetics; here saunter along a couple of actors with the air
of being on the stage. These people all have the “nightcap” habit, and
drift along towards the bar-room--the last brilliant scene in the drama
of the idle day, the necessary portal to the realm of silence and sleep.

This is a large apartment, brightly lighted, with a bar extending across
one end of it. Modern taste is conspicuous here, nothing is gaudy,
colors are subdued, and its decorations are simple even the bar itself
is refined, substantial, decorous, wanting entirely the meretricious
glitter and barbarous ornamentation of the old structures of this sort,
and the attendants have wholly laid aside the smart antics of the former
bartender, and the customers are swiftly and silently served by the
deferential waiters. This is one of the most striking changes that King
noticed in American life.

There is a certain sort of life-whether it is worth seeing is a question
that we can see nowhere else, and for an hour Mr. Glow and King and
Forbes, sipping their raspberry shrub in a retired corner of the
bar-room, were interested spectators of the scene. Through the padded
swinging doors entered, as in a play, character after character. Each
actor as he entered stopped for a moment and stared about him, and in
this act revealed his character-his conceit, his slyness, his bravado,
his self-importance. There was great variety, but practically one
prevailing type, and that the New York politician. Most of them were
from the city, though the country politician apes the city politician as
much as possible, but he lacks the exact air, notwithstanding the black
broadcloth and the white hat. The city men are of two varieties--the
smart, perky-nosed, vulgar young ward worker, and the heavy-featured,
gross, fat old fellow. One after another they glide in, with an always
conscious air, swagger off to the bar, strike attitudes in groups, one
with his legs spread, another with a foot behind on tiptoe, another
leaning against the counter, and so pose, and drink “My respects”--all
rather solemn and stiff, impressed perhaps by the decorousness of the
place, and conscious of their good clothes. Enter together three stout
men, a yard across the shoulders, each with an enormous development
in front, waddle up to the bar, attempt to form a triangular group
for conversation, but find themselves too far apart to talk in
that position, and so arrange themselves side by side--a most
distinguished-looking party, like a portion of a swell-front street
in Boston. To them swaggers up a young sport, like one of Thackeray's
figures in the “Irish Sketch-Book”--short, in a white hat, poor face,
impudent manner, poses before the swell fronts, and tosses off his
glass. About a little table in one corner are three excessively “ugly
mugs,” leering at each other and pouring down champagne. These men are
all dressed as nearly like gentlemen as the tailor can make them, but
even he cannot change their hard, brutal faces. It is not their fault
that money and clothes do not make a gentleman; they are well fed and
vulgarly prosperous, and if you inquire you will find that their women
are in silks and laces. This is a good place to study the rulers of New
York; and impressive as they are in appearance, it is a relief to notice
that they unbend to each other, and hail one another familiarly as
“Billy” and “Tommy.” Do they not ape what is most prosperous and
successful in American life? There is one who in make-up, form, and air,
even to the cut of his side-whiskers, is an exact counterpart of the
great railway king. Here is a heavy-faced young fellow in evening dress,
perhaps endeavoring to act the part of a gentleman, who has come from an
evening party unfortunately a little “slewed,” but who does not know
how to sustain the character, for presently he becomes very familiar
and confidential with the dignified colored waiter at the buffet,
who requires all his native politeness to maintain the character of a
gentleman for two.

If these men had millions, could they get any more enjoyment out of
life? To have fine clothes, drink champagne, and pose in a fashionable
bar-room in the height of the season--is not this the apotheosis of
the “heeler” and the ward “worker”? The scene had a fascination for the
artist, who declared that he never tired watching the evolutions of the
foreign element into the full bloom of American citizenship.




XII. LAKE GEORGE, AND SARATOGA AGAIN

The intimacy between Mrs. Bartlett Glow and Irene increased as the days
went by. The woman of society was always devising plans for Irene's
entertainment, and winning her confidence by a thousand evidences of
interest and affection. Pleased as King was with this at first, he began
to be annoyed at a devotion to which he could have no objection except
that it often came between him and the enjoyment of the girl's society
alone; and latterly he had noticed that her manner was more grave when
they were together, and that a little something of reserve mingled with
her tenderness.

They made an excursion one day to Lake George--a poetical pilgrimage
that recalled to some of the party (which included some New Orleans
friends) the romance of early days. To the Bensons and the artist it was
all new, and to King it was seen for the first time in the transforming
atmosphere of love. To men of sentiment its beauties will never be
exhausted; but to the elderly and perhaps rheumatic tourist the draughty
steamboats do not always bring back the remembered delight of youth.
There is no pleasanter place in the North for a summer residence, but
there is a certain element of monotony and weariness inseparable from an
excursion: travelers have been known to yawn even on the Rhine. It was a
gray day, the country began to show the approach of autumn, and the view
from the landing at Caldwell's, the head of the lake, was never more
pleasing. In the marshes the cat-tails and the faint flush of color on
the alders and soft maples gave a character to the low shore, and the
gentle rise of the hills from the water's edge combined to make a sweet
and peaceful landscape.

The tourists find the steamer waiting for them at the end of the rail,
and if they are indifferent to the war romances of the place, as most of
them are, they hurry on without a glance at the sites of the famous old
forts St. George and William Henry. Yet the head of the lake might well
detain them a few hours though they do not care for the scalping Indians
and their sometime allies the French or the English. On the east side
the lake is wooded to the shore, and the jutting points and charming
bays make a pleasant outline to the eye. Crosbyside is the ideal of a
summer retreat, nestled in foliage on a pretty point, with its great
trees on a sloping lawn, boathouses and innumerable row and sail boats,
and a lovely view, over the blue waters, of a fine range of hills.
Caldwell itself, on the west side, is a pretty tree-planted village in
a break in the hills, and a point above it shaded with great pines is
a favorite rendezvous for pleasure parties, who leave the ground
strewn with egg-shells and newspapers. The Fort William Henry Hotel was
formerly the chief resort on the lake. It is a long, handsome structure,
with broad piazzas, and low evergreens and flowers planted in front. The
view from it, under the great pines, of the lake and the northern purple
hills, is lovely. But the tide of travel passes it by, and the few
people who were there seemed lonesome. It is always so. Fashion demands
novelty; one class of summer boarders and tourists drives out another,
and the people who want to be sentimental at this end of the lake now
pass it with a call, perhaps a sigh for the past, and go on to fresh
pastures where their own society is encamped.

Lake George has changed very much within ten years; hotels and great
boarding-houses line the shores; but the marked difference is in the
increase of cottage life. As our tourists sailed down the lake they were
surprised by the number of pretty villas with red roofs peeping out from
the trees, and the occupation of every island and headland by gay and
often fantastic summer residences. King had heard this lake compared
with Como and Maggiore, and as a patriot he endeavored to think that its
wild and sylvan loveliness was more pleasing than the romantic beauty
of the Italian lakes. But the effort failed. In this climate it is
impossible that Horicon should ever be like Como. Pretty hills and
forests and temporary summer structures cannot have the poetic or the
substantial interest of the ancient villages and towns clinging to the
hills, the old stone houses, the vines, the ruins, the atmosphere of
a long civilization. They do the lovely Horicon no service who provoke
such comparisons.

The lake has a character of its own. As the traveler sails north and
approaches the middle of the lake, the gems of green islands multiply,
the mountains rise higher, and shouldering up in the sky seem to bar a
further advance; toward sunset the hills, which are stately but lovely,
a silent assembly of round and sharp peaks, with long, graceful slopes,
take on exquisite colors, violet, bronze, and green, and now and again a
bold rocky bluff shines like a ruby in the ruddy light. Just at dusk the
steamer landed midway in the lake at Green Island, where the scenery
is the boldest and most romantic; from the landing a park-like lawn,
planted with big trees, slopes up to a picturesque hotel. Lights
twinkled from many a cottage window and from boats in the bay, and
strains of music saluted the travelers. It was an enchanting scene.

The genius of Philadelphia again claims the gratitude of the tourist,
for the Sagamore Hotel is one of the most delightful hostelries in
the world. A peculiar, interesting building, rambling up the slope
on different levels, so contrived that all the rooms are outside, and
having a delightful irregularity, as if the house had been a growth.
Naturally a hotel so dainty in its service and furniture, and so
refined, was crowded to its utmost capacity. The artist could find
nothing to complain of in the morning except that the incandescent
electric light in his chamber went out suddenly at midnight and left him
in blank darkness in the most exciting crisis of a novel. Green Island
is perhaps a mile long. A bridge connects it with the mainland, and
besides the hotel it has a couple of picturesque stone and timber
cottages. At the north end are the remains of the English intrenchments
of 1755--signs of war and hate which kindly nature has almost
obliterated with sturdy trees. With the natural beauty of the island art
has little interfered; near the hotel is the most stately grove of white
birches anywhere to be seen, and their silvery sheen, with occasional
patches of sedge, and the tender sort of foliage that Corot liked to
paint, gives an exceptional refinement to the landscape. One needs,
indeed, to be toned up by the glimpses, under the trees, over the blue
water, of the wooded craggy hills, with their shelf-like ledges, which
are full of strength and character. The charm of the place is due to
this combination of loveliness and granitic strength.

Irene long remembered the sail of that morning, seated in the bow of the
steamer with King, through scenes of ever-changing beauty, as the boat
wound about the headlands and made its calls, now on one side and now
on the other, at the pretty landings and decorated hotels. On every hand
was the gayety of summer life--a striped tent on a rocky point with a
platform erected for dancing, a miniature bark but on an island, and a
rustic arched bridge to the mainland, gaudy little hotels with winding
paths along the shore, and at all the landings groups of pretty girls
and college lads in boating costume. It was wonderful how much these
holiday makers were willing to do for the entertainment of the passing
travelers. A favorite pastime in this peaceful region was the broom
drill, and its execution gave an operatic character to the voyage. When
the steamer approaches, a band of young ladies in military ranks, clad
in light marching costume, each with a broom in place of a musket,
descend to the landing and delight the spectators with their warlike
manoeuvres. The march in the broom-drill is two steps forward and one
step back, a mode of progression that conveys the notion of a pleasing
indecision of purpose, which is foreign to the character of these
handsome Amazons, who are quite able to hold the wharf against all
comers. This act of war in fancy, dress, with its two steps forward and
one back, and the singing of a song, is one of the most fatal to the
masculine peace of mind in the whole history of carnage.

Mrs. Bartlett Glow, to be sure, thought it would be out of place at
the Casino; but even she had to admit that the American girl who would
bewitch the foreigner with her one, two, and one, and her flourish of
broom on Lake George, was capable of freezing his ardor by her cool
good-breeding at Newport.

There was not much more to be done at Saratoga. Mrs. Benson had tried
every spring in the valley, and thus anticipated a remedy, as Mr. Benson
said, for any possible “complaint” that might visit her in the future.
Mr. Benson himself said that he thought it was time for him to move to
a new piazza, as he had worn out half the chairs at the Grand Union.
The Bartlett-Glows were already due at Richfield; in fact, Penelope was
impatient to go, now that she had persuaded the Bensons to accompany
her; and the artist, who had been for some time grumbling that there
was nothing left in Saratoga to draw except corks, reminded King of his
agreement at Bar Harbor, and the necessity he felt for rural retirement
after having been dragged all over the continent.

On the last day Mr. Glow took King and Forbes off to the races, and
Penelope and the Bensons drove to the lake. King never could tell why
he consented to this arrangement, but he knew in a vague way that it is
useless to attempt to resist feminine power, that shapes our destiny in
spite of all our rough-hewing of its outlines. He had become very uneasy
at the friendship between Irene and Penelope, but he could give no
reason for his suspicion, for it was the most natural thing in the world
for his cousin to be interested in the girl who was about to come into
the family. It seemed also natural that Penelope should be attracted by
her nobility of nature. He did not know till afterwards that it was this
very nobility and unselfishness which Penelope saw could be turned to
account for her own purposes. Mrs. Bartlett Glow herself would have said
that she was very much attached to Irene, and this would have been true;
she would have said also that she pitied her, and this would have been
true; but she was a woman whose world was bounded by her own social
order, and she had no doubt in her own mind that she was loyal to the
best prospects of her cousin, and, what was of more importance, that she
was protecting her little world from a misalliance when she preferred
Imogene Cypher to Irene Benson. In fact, the Bensons in her set were
simply an unthinkable element. It disturbed the established order of
things. If any one thinks meanly of Penelope for counting upon the
heroism of Irene to effect her unhappiness, let him reflect of how
little consequence is the temporary happiness of one or two individuals
compared with the peace and comfort of a whole social order. And she
might also well make herself believe that she was consulting the best
interests of Irene in keeping her out of a position where she might
be subject to so many humiliations. She was capable of crying over the
social adventures of the heroine of a love story, and taking sides with
her against the world, but as to the actual world itself, her practical
philosophy taught her that it was much better always, even at the cost
of a little heartache in youth, to go with the stream than against it.

The lake at Saratoga is the most picturesque feature of the region, and
would alone make the fortune of any other watering-place. It is always
a surprise to the stranger, who has bowled along the broad drive of five
miles through a pleasing but not striking landscape, to come suddenly,
when he alights at the hotel, upon what seems to be a “fault,” a sunken
valley, and to look down a precipitous, grassy, tree-planted slope
upon a lake sparkling at the bottom and reflecting the enclosing
steep shores. It is like an aqua-marine gem countersunk in the green
landscape. Many an hour had Irene and Stanhope passed in dreamy
contemplation of it. They had sailed down the lake in the little
steamer, they had whimsically speculated about this and that couple who
took their ices or juleps under the trees or on the piazza of the hotel,
and the spot had for them a thousand tender associations. It was here
that Stanhope had told her very fully the uneventful story of his
life, and it was here that she had grown into full sympathy with his
aspirations for the future.

It was of all this that Irene thought as she sat talking that day with
Penelope on a bench at the foot of the hill by the steamboat landing. It
was this very future that the woman of the world was using to raise in
the mind of Irene a morbid sense of her duty. Skillfully with this was
insinuated the notion of the false and contemptible social pride
and exclusiveness of Stanhope's relations, which Mrs. Bartlett Glow
represented as implacable while she condemned it as absurd. There was
not a word of opposition to the union of Irene and Stanhope: Penelope
was not such a bungler as to make that mistake. It was not her cue to
definitely suggest a sacrifice for the welfare of her cousin. If she let
Irene perceive that she admired the courage in her that could face all
these adverse social conditions that were conjured up before her, Irene
could never say that Penelope had expressed anything of the sort. Her
manner was affectionate, almost caressing; she declared that she felt
a sisterly interest in her. This was genuine enough. I am not sure that
Mrs. Bartlett Glow did not sometimes waver in her purpose when she was
in the immediate influence of the girl's genuine charm, and felt how
sincere she was. She even went so far as to wish to herself that Irene
had been born in her own world.

It was not at all unnatural that Irene should have been charmed by
Penelope, and that the latter should gradually have established an
influence over her. She was certainly kind-hearted, amiable, bright,
engaging. I think all those who have known her at Newport, or in her New
York home, regard her as one of the most charming women in the world.
Nor is she artificial, except as society requires her to be, and if she
regards the conventions of her own set as the most important things
in life, therein she does not differ from hosts of excellent wives
and mothers. Irene, being utterly candid herself, never suspected that
Penelope had at all exaggerated the family and social obstacles, nor did
it occur to her to doubt Penelope's affection for her. But she was not
blind. Being a woman, she comprehended perfectly the indirection of a
woman's approaches, and knew well enough by this time that Penelope,
whatever her personal leanings, must feel with her family in regard to
this engagement. And that she, who was apparently her friend, and who
had Stanhope's welfare so much at heart, did so feel was an added reason
why Irene was drifting towards a purpose of self-sacrifice. When she
was with Stanhope such a sacrifice seemed as impossible as it would be
cruel, but when she was with Mrs. Bartlett Glow, or alone, the subject
took another aspect. There is nothing more attractive to a noble woman
of tender heart than a duty the performance of which will make her
suffer. A false notion of duty has to account for much of the misery in
life.

It was under this impression that Irene passed the last evening at
Saratoga with Stanhope on the piazza of the hotel--an evening that
the latter long remembered as giving him the sweetest and the most
contradictory and perplexing glimpses of a woman's heart.




XIII. RICHFIELD SPRINGS, COOPERSTOWN

After weeks of the din of Strauss and Gungl, the soothing strains of
the Pastoral Symphony. Now no more the kettle-drum and the ceaseless
promenade in showy corridors, but the oaten pipe under the spreading
maples, the sheep feeding on the gentle hills of Otsego, the carnival of
the hop-pickers. It is time to be rural, to adore the country, to speak
about the dew on the upland pasture, and the exquisite view from Sunset
Hill. It is quite English, is it not? this passion for quiet, refined
country life, which attacks all the summer revelers at certain periods
in the season, and sends them in troops to Richfield or Lenox or some
other peaceful retreat, with their simple apparel bestowed in modest
fourstory trunks. Come, gentle shepherdesses, come, sweet youths in
white flannel, let us tread a measure on the greensward, let us wander
down the lane, let us pass under the festoons of the hop-vines, let us
saunter in the paths of sentiment, that lead to love in a cottage and a
house in town.

Every watering-place has a character of its own, and those who have
given little thought to this are surprised at the endless variety in the
American resorts. But what is even more surprising is the influence
that these places have upon the people that frequent them, who appear to
change their characters with their surroundings. One woman in her season
plays many parts, dashing in one place, reserved in another, now gay
and active, now listless and sentimental, not at all the same woman at
Newport that she is in the Adirondack camps, one thing at Bar Harbor and
quite another at Saratoga or at Richfield. Different tastes, to be sure,
are suited at different resorts, but fashion sends a steady procession
of the same people on the round of all.

The charm of Richfield Springs is in the character of the landscape. It
is a limestone region of gentle slopes and fine lines; and although
it is elevated, the general character is refined rather than bold,
the fertile valleys in pleasing irregularity falling away from rounded
wooded hills in a manner to produce the impression of peace and repose.
The lay of the land is such that an elevation of a few hundred feet
gives a most extensive prospect, a view of meadows and upland pastures,
of lakes and ponds, of forests hanging in dark masses on the limestone
summits, of fields of wheat and hops, and of distant mountain ranges. It
is scenery that one grows to love, and that responds to one's every mood
in variety and beauty. In a whole summer the pedestrian will not exhaust
the inspiring views, and the drives through the gracious land, over
hills, round the lakes, by woods and farms, increase in interest as one
knows them better. The habitues of the place, year after year, are at a
loss for words to convey their peaceful satisfaction.

In this smiling country lies the pretty village of Richfield, the
rural character of which is not entirely lost by reason of the hotels,
cottages, and boardinghouses which line the broad principal street.
The centre of the town is the old Spring House and grounds. When our
travelers alighted in the evening at this mansion, they were reminded of
an English inn, though it is not at all like an inn in England except in
its atmosphere of comfort. The building has rather a colonial character,
with its long corridors and pillared piazzas; built at different times,
and without any particular plans except to remain old-fashioned, it is
now a big, rambling white mass of buildings in the midst of maple-trees,
with so many stairs and passages on different levels, and so many nooks
and corners, that the stranger is always getting lost in it--turning up
in the luxurious smoking-room when he wants to dine, and opening a door
that lets him out into the park when he is trying to go to bed. But
there are few hotels in the country where the guests are so well taken
care of.

This was the unbought testimony of Miss Lamont, who, with her uncle, had
been there long enough to acquire the common anxiety of sojourners that
the newcomers should be pleased, and who superfluously explained the
attractions of the place to the artist, as if in his eyes, that rested
on her, more than one attraction was needed. It was very pleasant to
see the good comradeship that existed between these two, and the frank
expression of their delight in meeting again. Here was a friendship
without any reserve, or any rueful misunderstandings, or necessity for
explanations. Irene's eyes followed them with a wistful look as they
went off together round the piazza and through the parlors, the girl
playing the part of the hostess, and inducting him into the mild
gayeties of the place.

The height of the season was over, she said; there had been tableaux and
charades, and broom-drills, and readings and charity concerts. Now the
season was on the sentimental wane; every night the rooms were full of
whist-players, and the days were occupied in quiet strolling over the
hills, and excursions to Cooperstown and Cherry Valley and “points of
view,” and visits to the fields to see the hop-pickers at work. If there
were a little larking about the piazzas in the evening, and a group here
and there pretending to be merry over tall glasses with ice and straws
in them, and lingering good-nights at the stairways, why should the aged
and rheumatic make a note of it? Did they not also once prefer the dance
to hobbling to the spring, and the taste of ginger to sulphur?

Of course the raison d'etre of being here is the sulphur spring. There
is no doubt of its efficacy. I suppose it is as unpleasant as any in the
country. Everybody smells it, and a great many drink it. The artist said
that after using it a week the blind walk, the lame see, and the dumb
swear. It renews youth, and although the analyzer does not say that it
is a “love philter,” the statistics kept by the colored autocrat who
ladles out the fluid show that there are made as many engagements at
Richfield as at any other summer fair in the country.

There is not much to chronicle in the peaceful flow of domestic life,
and, truth to say, the charm of Richfield is largely in its restfulness.
Those who go there year after year converse a great deal about their
liking for it, and think the time well spent in persuading new arrivals
to take certain walks and drives. It was impressed upon King that he
must upon no account omit a visit to Rum Hill, from the summit of which
is had a noble prospect, including the Adirondack Mountains. He tried
this with a walking party, was driven back when near the summit by a
thunder, storm, which offered a series of grand pictures in the sky and
on the hills, and took refuge in a farmhouse which was occupied by a
band of hop-pickers. These adventurers are mostly young girls and young
men from the cities and factory villages, to whom this is the only
holiday of the year. Many of the pickers, however, are veterans. At this
season one meets them on all the roads, driving from farm to farm
in lumber wagons, carrying into the dull rural life their slang, and
“Captain Jinks” songs, and shocking free manners. At the great hop
fields they lodge all together in big barracks, and they make lively
for the time whatever farmhouse they occupy. They are a “rough lot,” and
need very much the attention of the poet and the novelist, who might (if
they shut their eyes) make this season as romantic as vintage-time on
the Rhine, or “moonshining” on the Southern mountains. The hop field
itself, with its tall poles draped in graceful vines which reach from
pole to pole, and hang their yellowing fruit in pretty festoons and
arbors, is much more picturesque than the vine-clad hills.

Mrs. Bartlett Glow found many acquaintances here from New York and
Philadelphia and Newport, and, to do her justice, she introduced Irene
to them and presently involved her in so many pleasure parties and
excursions that she and King were scarcely ever alone together. When
opportunity offered for a stroll a deux, the girl's manner was so
constrained that King was compelled to ask the reason of it. He got very
little satisfaction, and the puzzle of her conduct was increased by her
confession that she loved him just the same, and always should.

“But something has come between us,” he said. “I think I have the right
to be treated with perfect frankness.”

“So you have,” she replied. “There is nothing--nothing at least that
changes my feeling towards you.”

“But you think that mine is changed for you?”

“No, not that, either, never that;” and her voice showed excitement as
she turned away her head. “But don't you know, Stanhope, you have not
known me very long, and perhaps you have been a little hasty, and--how
shall I say it?--if you had more time to reflect, when you go back to
your associates and your active life, it might somehow look differently
to you, and your prospects--”

“Why, Irene, I have no prospects without you. I love you; you are my
life. I don't understand. I am just yours, and nothing you can do will
ever make it any different for me; but if you want to be free--”

“No, no,” cried the girl, trying in vain to restrain her agitation
and her tears, “not that. I don't want to be free. But you will not
understand. Circumstances are so cruel, and if, Stanhope, you ever
should regret when it is too late! It would kill me. I want you to be
happy. And, Stanhope, promise me that, whatever happens, you will not
think ill of me.”

Of course he promised, he declared that nothing could happen, he vowed,
and he protested against this ridiculous phantom in her mind. To a
man, used to straightforward cuts in love as in any other object of
his desire, this feminine exaggeration of conscientiousness is wholly
incomprehensible. How under heavens a woman could get a kink of duty in
her mind which involved the sacrifice of herself and her lover was past
his fathoming.

The morning after this conversation, the most of which the reader has
been spared, there was an excursion to Cooperstown. The early start of
the tally-ho coaches for this trip is one of the chief sensations of the
quiet village. The bustle to collect the laggards, the importance of the
conductors and drivers, the scramble up the ladders, the ruses to get
congenial seat-neighbors, the fine spirits of everybody evoked by the
fresh morning air, and the elevation on top of the coaches, give the
start an air of jolly adventure. Away they go, the big red-and-yellow
arks, swinging over the hills and along the well-watered valleys, past
the twin lakes to Otsego, over which hangs the romance of Cooper's
tales, where a steamer waits. This is one of the most charming of the
little lakes that dot the interior of New York; without bold shores or
anything sensational in its scenery, it is a poetic element in a refined
and lovely landscape. There are a few fishing-lodges and summer cottages
on its banks (one of them distinguished as “Sinners' Rest”), and a hotel
or two famous for dinners; but the traveler would be repaid if there
were nothing except the lovely village of Cooperstown embowered in
maples at the foot. The town rises gently from the lake, and is very
picturesque with its church spires and trees and handsome mansions; and
nothing could be prettier than the foreground, the gardens, the
allees of willows, the long boat wharves with hundreds of rowboats and
sail-boats, and the exit of the Susquehanna River, which here swirls
away under drooping foliage, and begins its long journey to the sea. The
whole village has an air of leisure and refinement. For our tourists the
place was pervaded by the spirit of the necromancer who has woven
about it a spell of romance; but to the ordinary inhabitants the long
residence of the novelist here was not half so important as that of
the very distinguished citizen who had made a great fortune out of some
patent, built here a fine house, and adorned his native town. It is not
so very many years since Cooper died, and yet the boatmen and loungers
about the lake had only the faintest impression of the man-there was a
writer by that name, one of them said, and some of his family lived near
the house of the great man already referred to. The magician who
created Cooperstown sleeps in the old English-looking church-yard of the
Episcopal church, in the midst of the graves of his relations, and there
is a well-worn path to his head-stone. Whatever the common people of
the town may think, it is that grave that draws most pilgrims to the
village. Where the hillside cemetery now is, on the bank of the lake,
was his farm, which he visited always once and sometimes twice a day. He
commonly wrote only from ten to twelve in the morning, giving the rest
of the time to his farm and the society of his family. During the period
of his libel suits, when the newspapers represented him as morose
and sullen in his retirement, he was, on the contrary, in the highest
spirits and the most genial mood. “Deer-slayer” was written while
this contest was at its height. Driving one day from his farm with his
daughter, he stopped and looked long over his favorite prospect on the
lake, and said, “I must write one more story, dear, about our little
lake.” At that moment the “Deerslayer” was born. He was silent the
rest of the way home, and went immediately to his library and began the
story.

The party returned in a moralizing vein. How vague already in the
village which his genius has made known over the civilized world is
the fame of Cooper! To our tourists the place was saturated with his
presence, but the new generation cares more for its smart prosperity
than for all his romance. Many of the passengers on the boat had
stopped at a lakeside tavern to dine, preferring a good dinner to the
associations which drew our sentimentalists to the spots that were
hallowed by the necromancer's imagination. And why not? One cannot live
in the past forever. The people on the boat who dwelt in Cooperstown
were not talking about Cooper, perhaps had not thought of him for a
year. The ladies, seated in the bow of the boat, were comparing notes
about their rheumatism and the measles of their children; one of them
had been to the funeral of a young girl who was to have been married
in the autumn, poor thing, and she told her companion who were at the
funeral, and how they were dressed, and how little feeling Nancy seemed
to show, and how shiftless it was not to have more flowers, and how the
bridegroom bore up-well, perhaps it's an escape, she was so weakly.

The day lent a certain pensiveness to all this; the season was visibly
waning; the soft maples showed color, the orchards were heavy with
fruit, the mountain-ash hung out its red signals, the hop-vines were
yellowing, and in all the fence corners the golden-rod flamed and made
the meanest high-road a way of glory. On Irene fell a spell of sadness
that affected her lover. Even Mrs. Bartlett-Glow seemed touched by some
regret for the fleeting of the gay season, and the top of the coach
would have been melancholy enough but for the high spirits of Marion
and the artist, whose gayety expanded in the abundance of the harvest
season. Happy natures, unrestrained by the subtle melancholy of a
decaying year!

The summer was really going. On Sunday the weather broke in a violent
storm of wind and rain, and at sunset, when it abated, there were
portentous gleams on the hills, and threatening clouds lurking about
the sky. It was time to go. Few people have the courage to abide the
breaking of the serenity of summer, and remain in the country for the
more glorious autumn days that are to follow. The Glows must hurry back
to Newport. The Bensons would not be persuaded out of their fixed plan
to “take in,” as Mr. Benson expressed it, the White Mountains. The
others were going to Niagara and the Thousand Islands; and when King
told Irene that he would much rather change his route and accompany her,
he saw by the girl's manner that it was best not to press the subject.
He dreaded to push an explanation, and, foolish as lovers are, he was
wise for once in trusting to time. But he had a miserable evening. He
let himself be irritated by the lightheartedness of Forbes. He objected
to the latter's whistling as he went about his room packing up his
traps. He hated a fellow that was always in high spirits. “Why, what has
come over you, old man?” queried the artist, stopping to take a critical
look at his comrade. “Do you want to get out of it? It's my impression
that you haven't taken sulphur water enough.”

On Monday morning there was a general clearing out. The platform at
the station was crowded. The palace-cars for New York, for Niagara, for
Albany, for the West, were overflowing. There was a pile of trunks as
big as a city dwelling-house. Baby-carriages cumbered the way; dogs were
under foot, yelping and rending the tender hearts of their owners; the
porters staggered about under their loads, and shouted till they
were hoarse; farewells were said; rendezvous made--alas! how many
half-fledged hopes came to an end on that platform! The artist thought
he had never seen so many pretty girls together in his life before, and
each one had in her belt a bunch of goldenrod. Summer was over, sure
enough.

At Utica the train was broken up, and its cars despatched in various
directions. King remembered that it was at Utica that the younger Cato
sacrificed himself. In the presence of all the world Irene bade him
good-by. “It will not be for long,” said King, with an attempt at
gayety. “Nothing is for long,” she said with the same manner. And then
added in a low tone, as she slipped a note into his hand, “Do not think
ill of me.”

King opened the note as soon as he found his seat in the car, and this
was what he read as the train rushed westward towards the Great Fall:

   “MY DEAR FRIEND,--How can I ever say it? It is best that we
   separate. I have thought and thought; I have struggled with myself.
   I think that I know it is best for you. I have been happy--ah me!
   Dear, we must look at the world as it is. We cannot change it--if
   we break our hearts, we cannot. Don't blame your cousin. It is
   nothing that she has done. She has been as sweet and kind to me as
   possible, but I have seen through her what I feared, just how it is.
   Don't reproach me. It is hard now. I know it. But I believe that
   you will come to see it as I do. If it was any sacrifice that I
   could make, that would be easy. But to think that I had sacrificed
   you, and that you should some day become aware of it! You are free.
   I am not silly. It is the future I am thinking of. You must take
   your place in the world where your lot is cast. Don't think I have
   a foolish pride. Perhaps it is pride that tells me not to put
   myself in a false position; perhaps it is something else. Never
   think it is want of heart in.

              “Good-by.

                       “IRENE”


As King finished this he looked out of the window.

The landscape was black.




XIV. NIAGARA

In the car for Niagara was an Englishman of the receptive, guileless,
thin type, inquisitive and overflowing with approval of everything
American--a type which has now become one of the common features of
travel in this country. He had light hair, sandy side-whiskers, a face
that looked as if it had been scrubbed with soap and sandpaper, and he
wore a sickly yellow traveling-suit. He was accompanied by his wife, a
stout, resolute matron, in heavy boots, a sensible stuff gown, with a
lot of cotton lace fudged about her neck, and a broad brimmed hat with
a vegetable garden on top. The little man was always in pursuit of
information, in his guide-book or from his fellow-passengers, and
whenever he obtained any he invariably repeated it to his wife, who
said “Fancy!” and “Now, really!” in a rising inflection that expressed
surprise and expectation.

The conceited American, who commonly draws himself into a shell when he
travels, and affects indifference, and seems to be losing all natural
curiosity, receptivity, and the power of observation, is pretty certain
to undervalue the intelligence of this class of English travelers, and
get amusement out of their peculiarities instead of learning from them
how to make everyday of life interesting. Even King, who, besides his
national crust of exclusiveness, was today wrapped in the gloom of
Irene's letter, was gradually drawn to these simple, unpretending
people. He took for granted their ignorance of America--ignorance of
America being one of the branches taught in the English schools--and he
soon discovered that they were citizens of the world. They not only knew
the Continent very well, but they had spent a winter in Egypt, lived a
year in India, and seen something of China and much of Japan. Although
they had been scarcely a fortnight in the United States, King doubted
if there were ten women in the State of New York, not professional
teachers, who knew as much of the flora of the country as this
plain-featured, rich-voiced woman. They called King's attention to a
great many features of the landscape he had never noticed before, and
asked him a great many questions about farming and stock and wages
that he could not answer. It appeared that Mr. Stanley Stubbs,
Stoke-Cruden--for that was the name and address of the present
discoverers of America--had a herd of short-horns, and that Mrs. Stubbs
was even more familiar with the herd-book than her husband. But before
the fact had enabled King to settle the position of his new acquaintance
satisfactorily to himself, Mrs. Stubbs upset his estimate by quoting
Tennyson.

“Your great English poet is very much read here,” King said, by way of
being agreeable.

“So we have heard,” replied Mrs. Stubbs. “Mr. Stubbs reads Tennyson
beautifully. He has thought of giving some readings while we are here.
We have been told that the Americans are very fond of readings.”

“Yes,” said King, “they are devoted to them, especially readings
by Englishmen in their native tongue. There is a great rage now for
everything English; at Newport hardly anything else is spoken.”

Mrs. Stubbs looked for a moment as if this might be an American joke;
but there was no smile upon King's face, and she only said, “Fancy! You
must make a note of Newport, dear. That is one of the places we must
see. Of course Mr. Stubbs has never read in public, you know. But I
suppose that would make no difference, the Americans are so kind and so
appreciative.”

“Not the least difference,” replied King. “They are used to it.”

“It is a wonderful country,” said Mr. Stubbs.

“Most interesting,” chimed in Mrs. Stubbs; “and so odd!

“You know, Mr. King, we find some of the Americans so clever. We have
been surprised, really. It makes us feel quite at home. At the hotels
and everywhere, most obliging.”

“Do you make a long stay?”

“Oh, no. We just want to study the people and the government, and see
the principal places. We were told that Albany is the capital, instead
of New York; it's so odd, you know. And Washington is another capital.
And there is Boston. It must be very confusing.” King began to suspect
that he must be talking with the editor of the Saturday Review. Mr.
Stubbs continued: “They told us in New York that we ought to go
to Paterson on the Island of Jersey, I believe. I suppose it is as
interesting as Niagara. We shall visit it on our return. But we came
over more to see Niagara than anything else. And from there we shall run
over to Chicago and the Yosemite. Now we are here, we could not think of
going back without a look at the Yosemite.”

King said that thus far he had existed without seeing the Yosemite, but
he believed that next to Chicago it was the most attractive place in the
country.

It was dark when they came into the station at Niagara--dark and silent.
Our American tourists, who were accustomed to the clamor of the hackmen
here, and expected to be assaulted by a horde of wild Comanches in plain
clothes, and torn limb from baggage, if not limb from limb, were unable
to account for this silence, and the absence of the common highwaymen,
until they remembered that the State had bought the Falls, and the
agents of the government had suppressed many of the old nuisances. It
was possible now to hear the roar of the cataract.

This unaccustomed human stillness was ominous to King. He would have
welcomed a Niagara of importunity and imprecations; he was bursting with
impatience to express himself; it seemed as if he would die if he were
silent an hour longer under that letter. Of course the usual American
relief of irritability and impatience suggested itself. He would
telegraph; only electricity was quick enough and fiery enough for his
mood. But what should he telegraph? The telegraph was not invented for
love-making, and is not adapted to it. It is ridiculous to make love by
wire. How was it possible to frame a message that should be commercial
on its face, and yet convey the deepest agony and devotion of the
sender's heart? King stood at the little telegraph window, looking at
the despatcher who was to send it, and thought of this. Depressed and
intent as he was, the whimsicality of the situation struck him. What
could he say? It illustrates our sheeplike habit of expressing ourselves
in the familiar phrase or popular slang of the day that at the instant
the only thing King could think of to send was this: “Hold the fort,
for I am coming.” The incongruity of this made him smile, and he did not
write it. Finally he composed this message, which seemed to him to have
a businesslike and innocent aspect: “Too late. Impossible for me to
change. Have invested everything. Expect letter.” Mechanically he
counted the words when he had written this. On the fair presumption that
the company would send “everything” as one word, there were still two
more than the conventional ten, and, from force of habit, he struck out
the words “for me.” But he had no sooner done this than he felt a sense
of shame. It was contemptible for a man in love to count his words, and
it was intolerable to be haggling with himself at such a crisis over
the expense of a despatch. He got cold over the thought that Irene might
also count them, and see that the cost of this message of passion had
been calculated. And with recklessness he added: “We reach the Profile
House next week, and I am sure I can convince you I am right.”

King found Niagara pitched to the key of his lacerated and tumultuous
feelings. There were few people at the Cataract House, and either the
bridal season had not set in, or in America a bride has been evolved who
does not show any consciousness of her new position. In his present mood
the place seemed deserted, the figures of the few visitors gliding about
as in a dream, as if they too had been subdued by the recent commission
which had silenced the drivers, and stopped the mills, and made the park
free, and was tearing down the presumptuous structures along the bank.
In this silence, which emphasized the quaking of the earth and air,
there was a sense of unknown, impending disaster. It was not to be borne
indoors, and the two friends went out into the night.

On the edge of the rapids, above the hotel, the old bath-house was in
process of demolition, its shaking piazza almost overhanging the flood.
Not much could be seen from it, but it was in the midst of an elemental
uproar. Some electric lamps shining through the trees made high lights
on the crests of the rapids, while the others near were in shadow and
dark. The black mass of Goat Island appeared under the lightning flashes
in the northwest sky, and whenever these quick gleams pierced the gloom
the frail bridge to the island was outlined for a moment, and then
vanished as if it had been swept away, and there could only be seen
sparks of light in the houses on the Canadian shore, which seemed very
near. In this unknown, which was rather felt than seen, there was a
sense of power and of mystery which overcame the mind; and in the black
night the roar, the cruel haste of the rapids, tossing white gleams and
hurrying to the fatal plunge, begat a sort of terror in the spectators.
It was a power implacable, vengeful, not to be measured. They strolled
down to Prospect Park. The gate was closed; it had been the scene of an
awful tragedy but a few minutes before. They did not know it, but they
knew that the air shuddered, and as they skirted the grounds along
the way to the foot-bridge the roar grew in their stunned ears. There,
projected out into the night, were the cables of steel holding the frail
platform over the abyss of night and terror. Beyond was Canada. There
was light enough in the sky to reveal, but not to dissipate, the
appalling insecurity. What an impious thing it seemed to them, this
trembling structure across the chasm! They advanced upon it. There were
gleams on the mill cascades below, and on the mass of the American Fall.
Below, down in the gloom, were patches of foam, slowly circling around
in the eddy--no haste now, just sullen and black satisfaction in the
awful tragedy of the fall. The whole was vague, fearful. Always the
roar, the shuddering of the air. I think that a man placed on this
bridge at night, and ignorant of the cause of the aerial agitation and
the wild uproar, could almost lose his reason in the panic of the scene.
They walked on; they set foot on Her Majesty's dominions; they entered
the Clifton House--quite American, you know, with its new bar and
office. A subdued air about everybody here also, and the same quaking,
shivering, and impending sense of irresponsible force. Even “two
fingers,” said the artist, standing at the bar, had little effect in
allaying the impression of the terror out there. When they returned
the moon was coming up, rising and struggling and making its way slowly
through ragged masses of colored clouds. The river could be plainly seen
now, smooth, deep, treacherous; the falls on the American side showed
fitfully like patches of light and foam; the Horseshoe, mostly hidden
by a cold silver mist, occasionally loomed up a white and ghostly mass.
They stood for a long time looking down at the foot of the American
Fall, the moon now showing clearly the plunge of the heavy column--a
column as stiff as if it were melted silver-hushed and frightened by the
weird and appalling scene. They did not know at that moment that there
where their eyes were riveted, there at the base of the fall, a man's
body was churning about, plunged down and cast up, and beaten and
whirled, imprisoned in the refluent eddy. But a body was there. In the
morning a man's overcoat was found on the parapet at the angle of the
fall. Someone then remembered that in the evening, just before the park
gate closed, he had seen a man approach the angle of the wall where the
overcoat was found. The man was never seen after that. Night first, and
then the hungry water, swallowed him. One pictures the fearful leap into
the dark, the midway repentance, perhaps, the despair of the plunge. A
body cast in here is likely to tarry for days, eddying round and round,
and tossed in that terrible maelstrom, before a chance current ejects
it, and sends it down the fierce rapids below. King went back to the
hotel in a terror of the place, which did not leave him so long as he
remained. His room quivered, the roar filled all the air. Is not life
real and terrible enough, he asked himself, but that brides must cast
this experience also into their honeymoon?

The morning light did not efface the impressions of the night, the
dominating presence of a gigantic, pitiless force, a blind passion of
nature, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Shut the windows and lock the
door, you could not shut out the terror of it. The town did not seem
safe; the bridges, the buildings on the edge of the precipices with
their shaking casements, the islands, might at any moment be engulfed
and disappear. It was a thing to flee from.

I suspect King was in a very sensitive mood; the world seemed for the
moment devoid of human sympathy, and the savageness and turmoil played
upon his bare nerves. The artist himself shrank from contact with this
overpowering display, and said that he could not endure more than a day
or two of it. It needed all the sunshine in the face of Miss Lamont and
the serenity of her cheerful nature to make the situation tolerable,
and even her sprightliness was somewhat subdued. It was a day of big,
broken, high-sailing clouds, with a deep blue sky and strong sunlight.
The slight bridge to Goat Island appeared more presumptuous by daylight,
and the sharp slope of the rapids above it gave a new sense of the
impetuosity of the torrent. As they walked slowly on, past the now
abandoned paper-mills and the other human impertinences, the elemental
turmoil increased, and they seemed entering a world the foundations
of which were broken up. This must have been a good deal a matter of
impression, for other parties of sightseers were coming and going,
apparently unawed, and intent simply on visiting every point spoken of
in the guide-book, and probably unconscious of the all-pervading
terror. But King could not escape it, even in the throng descending and
ascending the stairway to Luna Island. Standing upon the platform at the
top, he realized for the first time the immense might of the downpour of
the American Fall, and noted the pale green color, with here and there a
violet tone, and the white cloud mass spurting out from the solid
color. On the foam-crested river lay a rainbow forming nearly a complete
circle. The little steamer Maid of the Mist was coming up, riding the
waves, dashed here and there by conflicting currents, but resolutely
steaming on--such is the audacity of man--and poking her venturesome
nose into the boiling foam under the Horseshoe. On the deck are pigmy
passengers in oil-skin suits, clumsy figures, like arctic explorers.
The boat tosses about like a chip, it hesitates and quivers, and then,
slowly swinging, darts away down the current, fleeing from the wrath of
the waters, and pursued by the angry roar.

Surely it is an island of magic, unsubstantial, liable to go adrift and
plunge into the canon. Even in the forest path, where the great tree
trunks assure one of stability and long immunity, this feeling cannot be
shaken off. Our party descended the winding staircase in the tower, and
walked on the shelf under the mighty ledge to the entrance of the Cave
of the Winds. The curtain of water covering this entrance was blown back
and forth by the wind, now leaving the platform dry and now deluging it.
A woman in the pathway was beckoning frantically and calling to a man
who stood on the platform, entirely unconscious of danger, looking up
to the green curtain and down into the boiling mist. It was Mrs. Stubbs;
but she was shouting against Niagara, and her husband mistook her
pantomime for gestures of wonder and admiration. Some moments
passed, and then the curtain swung in, and tons of water drenched the
Englishman, and for an instant hid him from sight. Then, as the curtain
swung back, he was seen clinging to the handrail, sputtering and
astonished at such treatment. He came up the bank dripping, and
declaring that it was extraordinary, most extraordinary, but he wouldn't
have missed it for the world. From this platform one looks down the
narrow, slippery stairs that are lost in the boiling mist, and wonders
at the daring that built these steps down into that hell, and carried
the frail walk of planks over the bowlders outside the fall. A party in
oil-skins, making their way there, looked like lost men and women in
a Dante Inferno. The turbulent waters dashed all about them; the mist
occasionally wrapped them from sight; they clung to the rails, they
tried to speak to each other; their gestures seemed motions of despair.
Could that be Eurydice whom the rough guide was tenderly dragging out of
the hell of waters, up the stony path, that singular figure in oil-skin
trousers, who disclosed a pretty face inside her hood as she emerged?
One might venture into the infernal regions to rescue such a woman; but
why take her there? The group of adventurers stopped a moment on the
platform, with the opening into the misty cavern for a background, and
the artist said that the picture was, beyond all power of the pencil,
strange and fantastic. There is nothing, after all, that the human race
will not dare for a new sensation.

The walk around Goat Island is probably unsurpassed in the world for
wonder and beauty. The Americans have every reason to be satisfied with
their share of the fall; they get nowhere one single grand view like
that from the Canada side, but infinitely the deepest impression of
majesty and power is obtained on Goat Island. There the spectator is in
the midst of the war of nature. From the point over the Horseshoe Fall
our friends, speaking not much, but more and more deeply moved, strolled
along in the lovely forest, in a rural solemnity, in a local calm,
almost a seclusion, except for the ever-present shuddering roar in
the air. On the shore above the Horseshoe they first comprehended the
breadth, the great sweep, of the rapids. The white crests of the waves
in the west were coming out from under a black, lowering sky; all the
foreground was in bright sunlight, dancing, sparkling, leaping, hurrying
on, converging to the angle where the water becomes a deep emerald
at the break and plunge. The rapids above are a series of shelves,
bristling with jutting rocks and lodged trunks of trees, and the
wildness of the scene is intensified by the ragged fringe of evergreens
on the opposite shore.

Over the whole island the mist, rising from the caldron, drifts in
spray when the wind is rable; but on this day the forest was bright and
cheerful, and as the strollers went farther away from the Great Fall;
the beauty of the scene began to steal away its terror. The roar was
still dominant, but far off and softened, and did not crush the ear.
The triple islands, the Three Sisters, in their picturesque wildness
appeared like playful freaks of nature in a momentary relaxation of the
savage mood. Here is the finest view of the river; to one standing on
the outermost island the great flood seems tumbling out of the sky.
They continued along the bank of the river. The shallow stream races by
headlong, but close to the edge are numerous eddies, and places where
one might step in and not be swept away. At length they reached the
point where the river divides, and the water stands for an instant
almost still, hesitating whether to take the Canadian or American
plunge. Out a little way from the shore the waves leap and tumble, and
the two currents are like race-horses parted on two ways to the goal.
Just at this point the water swirls and lingers; having lost all its
fierceness and haste, and spreads itself out placidly, dimpling in the
sun. It may be a treacherous pause, this water may be as cruel as that
which rages below and exults in catching a boat or a man and bounding
with the victim over the cataract; but the calm was very grateful to the
stunned and buffeted visitors; upon their jarred nerves it was like the
peace of God.

“The preacher might moralize here,” said King. “Here is the parting of
the ways for the young man; here is a moment of calm in which he can
decide which course he will take. See, with my hand I can turn the
water to Canada or to America! So momentous is the easy decision of the
moment.”

“Yes,” said the artist, “your figure is perfect. Whichever side the
young man takes, he goes to destruction.”

“Or,” continued King, appealing to Miss Lamont against this illogical
construction, “this is the maiden at the crucial instant of choosing
between two impetuous suitors.”

“You mean she will be sorry, whichever she chooses?”

“You two practical people would spoil any illustration in the world. You
would divest the impressive drop of water on the mountain summit, which
might go to the Atlantic or to the Pacific, of all moral character by
saying that it makes no difference which ocean it falls into.”

The relief from the dread of Niagara felt at this point of peace was
only temporary. The dread returned when the party approached again the
turmoil of the American Fall, and fell again under the influence of the
merciless haste of the flood. And there every islet, every rock, every
point, has its legend of terror; here a boat lodged with a man in it,
and after a day and night of vain attempts to rescue him, thousands of
people saw him take the frightful leap, throwing up his arms as he went
over; here a young woman slipped, and was instantly whirled away out
of life; and from that point more than one dazed or frantic visitor had
taken the suicidal leap. Death was so near here and so easy!

One seems in less personal peril on the Canadian side, and has more
the feeling of a spectator and less that of a participant in the wild
uproar. Perhaps there is more sense of force, but the majesty of the
scene is relieved by a hundred shifting effects of light and color.
In the afternoon, under a broken sky, the rapids above the Horseshoe
reminded one of the seashore on a very stormy day. Impeded by the rocks,
the flood hesitated and even ran back, as if reluctant to take the final
plunge! The sienna color of the water on the table contrasted sharply
with the emerald at the break of the fall. A rainbow springing out of
the centre of the caldron arched clear over the American cataract, and
was one moment bright and the next dimly seen through the mist, which
boiled up out of the foam of waters and swayed in the wind. Through this
veil darted adventurous birds, flashing their wings in the prismatic
colors, and circling about as if fascinated by the awful rush and
thunder. With the shifting wind and the passing clouds the scene was in
perpetual change; now the American Fall was creamy white, and the mist
below dark, and again the heavy mass was gray and sullen, and the mist
like silver spray. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the force of
nature so overpowering to the mind, and as the eye wanders from the
chaos of the fall to the far horizon, where the vast rivers of rapids
are poured out of the sky, one feels that this force is inexhaustible
and eternal.

If our travelers expected to escape the impression they were under by
driving down to the rapids and whirlpool below, they were mistaken.
Nowhere is the river so terrible as where it rushes, as if maddened
by its narrow bondage, through the canon. Flung down the precipice and
forced into this contracted space, it fumes and tosses and rages with
vindictive fury, driving on in a passion that has almost a human quality
in it. Restrained by the walls of stone from being destructive, it seems
to rave at its own impotence, and when it reaches the whirlpool it is
like a hungry animal, returning and licking the shore for the prey it
has missed. But it has not always wanted a prey. Now and again it has a
wreck or a dead body to toss and fling about. Although it does not need
the human element of disaster to make this canon grewsome, the keepers
of the show places make the most of the late Captain Webb. So vivid
were their narratives that our sympathetic party felt his presence
continually, saw the strong swimmer tossed like a chip, saw him throw up
his hands, saw the agony in his face at the spot where he was last
seen. There are several places where he disappeared, each vouched for
by credible witnesses, so that the horror of the scene is multiplied for
the tourist. The late afternoon had turned gray and cold, and dashes of
rain fell as our party descended to the whirlpool. As they looked over
the heaped-up and foaming waters in this eddy they almost expected to
see Captain Webb or the suicide of the night before circling round in
the maelstrom. They came up out of the gorge silent, and drove back to
the hotel full of nervous apprehension.

King found no telegram from Irene, and the place seemed to him
intolerable. The artist was quite ready to go on in the morning; indeed,
the whole party, although they said it was unreasonable, confessed that
they were almost afraid to stay longer; the roar, the trembling, the
pervading sense of a blind force and rage, inspired a nameless dread.
The artist said, the next morning at the station, that he understood the
feelings of Lot.




XV. THE THOUSAND ISLES

The occupation of being a red man, a merchant of baskets and beadwork,
is taken up by so many traders with a brogue and a twang at our
watering-places that it is difficult for the traveler to keep alive any
sentiment about this race. But at a station beyond Lewiston our tourists
were reminded of it, and of its capacity for adopting our civilization
in its most efflorescent development. The train was invaded by a band of
Indians, or, to speak correctly, by an Indian band. There is nothing in
the world like a brass band in a country town; it probably gives more
pleasure to the performers than any other sort of labor. Yet the delight
it imparts to the listeners is apt to be tempered by a certain sense
of incongruity between the peaceful citizens who compose it and the
bellicose din they produce. There is a note of barbarism in the brassy
jar and clamor of the instruments, enhanced by the bewildering ambition
of each player to force through his piece the most noise and jangle,
which is not always covered and subdued into a harmonious whole by the
whang of the bass drum.

There was nothing of this incongruity between this band of Tuscaroras
and their occupation. Unaccustomed to associate the North American
Indian with music, the traveler at once sees the natural relation of
the Indians with the brass band. These Tuscaroras were stalwart fellows,
broad-faced, big-limbed, serious, and they carried themselves with a
clumsy but impressive dignity. There was no uniformity in their apparel,
yet each one wore some portion of a martial and resplendent dress--an
ornamented kepi, or a scarlet sash, or big golden epaulets, or a
military coat braided with yellow. The leader, who was a giant,
and carried the smallest instrument, outshone all the others in his
incongruous splendor. No sooner had they found seats at one end of the
car than they unlimbered, and began through their various reluctant
instruments to deploy a tune. Although the tune did not get well
into line, the effect was marvelous. The car was instantly filled to
bursting. Miss Lamont, who was reading at the other end of the car, gave
a nervous start, and looked up in alarm. King and Forbes promptly opened
windows, but this gave little relief. The trombone pumped and growled,
the trumpet blared, the big brass instrument with a calyx like the
monstrous tropical water-lily quivered and howled, and the drum, banging
into the discord, smashed every tympanum in the car. The Indians looked
pleased. No sooner had they broken one tune into fragments than they
took up another, and the car roared and rattled and jarred all the
way to the lonely station where the band debarked, and was last seen
convoying a straggling Odd-Fellows' picnic down a country road.

The incident, trivial in itself, gave rise to serious reflections
touching the capacity and use of the red man in modern life. Here is a
peaceful outlet for all his wild instincts. Let the government turn all
the hostiles on the frontier into brass bands, and we shall hear no more
of the Indian question.

The railway along the shore of Lake Ontario is for the most part
monotonous. After leaving the picturesque highlands about Lewiston, the
country is flat, and although the view over the lovely sheet of blue
water is always pleasing, there is something bleak even in summer in
this vast level expanse from which the timber has been cut away. It may
have been mere fancy, but to the tourists the air seemed thin, and the
scene, artistically speaking, was cold and colorless. With every desire
to do justice to the pretty town of Oswego, which lies on a gentle slope
by the lake, it had to them an out-of-doors, unprotected, remote aspect.
Seen from the station, it did not appear what it is, the handsomest city
on Lake Ontario, with the largest starch factory in the world.

It was towards evening when the train reached Cape Vincent, where
the steamer waited to transport passengers down the St. Lawrence. The
weather had turned cool; the broad river, the low shores, the long
islands which here divide its lake-like expanse, wanted atmospheric
warmth, and the tourists could not escape the feeling of lonesomeness,
as if they were on the other side of civilization, rather than in one of
the great streams of summer frolic and gayety. It was therefore a very
agreeable surprise to them when a traveling party alighted from one
of the cars, which had come from Rome, among whom they recognized Mrs.
Farquhar.

“I knew my education never could be complete,” said that lady as she
shook hands, “and you never would consider me perfectly in the Union
until I had seen the Thousand Islands; and here I am, after many Yankee
tribulations.”

“And why didn't you come by Niagara?” asked Miss Lamont.

“My dear, perhaps your uncle could tell you that I saw enough of Niagara
when I was a young lady, during the war. The cruelest thing you Yankees
did was to force us, who couldn't fight, to go over there for sympathy.
The only bearable thing about the fall of Richmond was that it relieved
me from that Fall. But where,” she added, turning to King, “are the rest
of your party?”

“If you mean the Bensons,” said he, with a rather rueful countenance, “I
believe they have gone to the White Mountains.”

“Oh, not lost, but gone before. You believe? If you knew the nights I
have lain awake thinking about you two, or you three! I fear you have
not been wide-awake enough yourself.”

“I knew I could depend on you, Mrs. Farquhar, for that.”

The steamer was moving off, taking a wide sweep to follow the channel.
The passengers were all engaged in ascertaining the names of the islands
and of the owners of the cottages and club-houses. “It is a kind of
information I have learned to dispense with,” said Mrs. Farquhar. And
the tourists, except three or four resolutely inquisitive, soon tired
of it. The islands multiplied; the boat wound in and out among them
in narrow straits. To sail thus amid rocky islets, hirsute with firs,
promised to be an unfailing pleasure. It might have been, if darkness
had not speedily fallen. But it is notable how soon passengers on a
steamer become indifferent and listless in any sort of scenery. Where
the scenery is monotonous and repeats itself mile after mile and
hour after hour, an intolerable weariness falls upon the company. The
enterprising group who have taken all the best seats in the bow, with
the intention of gormandizing the views, exhibit little staying
power; either the monotony or the wind drives them into the cabin. And
passengers in the cabin occupying chairs and sofas, surrounded by their
baggage, always look bored and melancholy.

“I always think,” said Mrs. Farquhar, “that I am going to enjoy a ride
on a steamer, but I never do. It is impossible to get out of a draught,
and the progress is so slow that variety enough is not presented to
the eye to keep one from ennui.” Nevertheless, Mrs. Farquhar and King
remained on deck, in such shelter as they could find, during the three
hours' sail, braced up by the consciousness that they were doing their
duty in regard to the enterprise that has transformed this lovely stream
into a highway of display and enjoyment. Miss Lamont and the artist went
below, frankly confessing that they could see all that interested them
from the cabin windows. And they had their reward; for in this little
cabin, where supper was served, a drama was going on between the
cook and the two waiting-maids and the cabin boy, a drama of love and
coquetry and jealousy and hope deferred, quite as important to those
concerned as any of the watering-place comedies, and played with entire
unconsciousness of the spectators.

The evening was dark, and the navigation in the tortuous channels
sometimes difficult, and might have been dangerous but for the
lighthouses. The steamer crept along in the shadows of the low
islands, making frequent landings, and never long out of sight of
the illuminations of hotels and cottages. Possibly by reason of these
illuminations this passage has more variety by night than by day. There
was certainly a fascination about this alternating brilliancy and gloom.
On nearly every island there was at least a cottage, and on the larger
islands were great hotels, camp-meeting establishments, and houses and
tents for the entertainment of thousands of people. Late as it was in
the season, most of the temporary villages and solitary lodges were
illuminated; colored lamps were set about the grounds, Chinese lanterns
hung in the evergreens, and on half a dozen lines radiating from the
belfry of the hotel to the ground, while all the windows blazed and
scintillated. Occasionally as the steamer passed these places of
irrepressible gayety rockets were let off, Bengal-lights were burned,
and once a cannon attempted to speak the joy of the sojourners. It was
like a continued Fourth of July, and King's heart burned within him
with national pride. Even Mrs. Farquhar had to admit that it was a fairy
spectacle. During the months of July and August this broad river,
with its fantastic islands, is at night simply a highway of glory. The
worldlings and the camp-meeting gatherings vie with each other in the
display of colored lights and fireworks. And such places as the Thousand
Islands Park, Wellesley and Wesley parks, and so on, twinkling with
lamps and rosy with pyrotechnics, like sections of the sky dropped upon
the earth, create in the mind of the steamer pilgrim an indescribable
earthly and heavenly excitement. He does not look upon these displays
as advertisements of rival resorts, but as generous contributions to the
hilarity of the world.

It is, indeed, a marvelous spectacle, this view for thirty or forty
miles, and the simple traveler begins to realize what American
enterprise is when it lays itself out for pleasure. These miles and
miles of cottages, hotels, parks, and camp-meetings are the creation of
only a few years, and probably can scarcely be paralleled elsewhere
in the world for rapidity of growth. But the strongest impression
the traveler has is of the public spirit of these summer sojourners,
speculators, and religious enthusiasts. No man lives to himself alone,
or builds his cottage for his selfish gratification. He makes fantastic
carpentry, and paints and decorates and illuminates and shows fireworks,
for the genuine sake of display. One marvels that a person should come
here for rest and pleasure in a spirit of such devotion to the public
weal, and devote himself night after night for months to illuminating
his house and lighting up his island, and tearing open the sky with
rockets and shaking the air with powder explosions, in order that the
river may be continually en fete.

At half-past eight the steamer rounded into view of the hotels and
cottages at Alexandria Bay, and the enchanting scene drew all the
passengers to the deck.

The Thousand Islands Hotel, and the Crossman House, where our party
found excellent accommodations, were blazing and sparkling like the
spectacular palaces in an opera scene. Rows of colored lamps were set
thickly along the shore, and disposed everywhere among the rocks on
which the Crossman House stands; lights glistened from all the islands,
from a thousand row-boats, and in all the windows. It was very like
Venice, seen from the lagoon, when the Italians make a gala-night.

If Alexandria Bay was less enchanting as a spectacle by daylight, it was
still exceedingly lovely and picturesque; islands and bays and winding
waterways could not be better combined for beauty, and the structures
that taste or ambition has raised on the islands or rocky points are
well enough in keeping with the general holiday aspect. One of the
prettiest of these cottages is the Bonnicastle of the late Dr. Holland,
whose spirit more or less pervades this region. It is charmingly
situated on a projecting point of gray rocks veined with color,
enlivened by touches of scarlet bushes and brilliant flowers planted in
little spots of soil, contrasting with the evergreen shrubs. It commands
a varied and delicious prospect, and has an air of repose and peace.

I am sorry to say that while Forbes and Miss Lamont floated, so to
speak, in all this beauty, like the light-hearted revelers they were,
King was scarcely in a mood to enjoy it. It seemed to him fictitious and
a little forced. There was no message for him at the Crossman House. His
restlessness and absentmindedness could not escape the observation of
Mrs. Farquhar, and as the poor fellow sadly needed a confidante, she was
soon in possession of his story.

“I hate slang,” she said, when he had painted the situation black enough
to suit Mrs. Bartlett Glow even, “and I will not give my sex away, but I
know something of feminine doubtings and subterfuges, and I give you my
judgment that Irene is just fretting herself to death, and praying that
you may have the spirit to ride rough-shod over her scruples. Yes, it is
just as true in this prosaic time as it ever was, that women like to be
carried off by violence. In their secret hearts, whatever they may say,
they like to see a knight batter down the tower and put all the garrison
except themselves to the sword. I know that I ought to be on Mrs.
Glow's side. It is the sensible side, the prudent side; but I do
admire recklessness in love. Probably you'll be uncomfortable, perhaps
unhappy--you are certain to be if you marry to please society and not
yourself--but better a thousand times one wild rush of real passion,
of self-forgetting love, than an age of stupid, conventional affection
approved by your aunt. Oh, these calculating young people!” Mrs.
Farquhar's voice trembled and her eyes flashed. “I tell you, my friend,
life is not worth living in a conventional stagnation. You see in
society how nature revenges itself when its instincts are repressed.”

Mrs. Farquhar turned away, and King saw that her eyes were full of
tears. She stood a moment looking away over the sparkling water to the
soft islands on the hazy horizon. Was she thinking of her own marriage?
Death had years ago dissolved it, and were these tears, not those of
mourning, but for the great experience possible in life, so seldom
realized, missed forever? Before King could frame, in the tumult of his
own thoughts, any reply, she turned towards him again, with her usual
smile, half of badinage and half of tenderness, and said:

“Come, this is enough of tragedy for one day; let us go on the Island
Wanderer, with the other excursionists, among the isles of the blest.”

The little steamer had already its load, and presently was under way,
puffing and coughing, on its usual afternoon trip among the islands.
The passengers were silent, and appeared to take the matter seriously--a
sort of linen-duster congregation, of the class who figure in the homely
dialect poems of the Northern bards, Mrs. Farquhar said. They were
chiefly interested in knowing the names of the successful people who had
built these fantastic dwellings, and who lived on illuminations. Their
curiosity was easily gratified, for in most cases the owners had painted
their names, and sometimes their places of residence, in staring white
letters on conspicuous rocks. There was also exhibited, for the benefit
of invalids, by means of the same white paint, here and there the name
of a medicine that is a household word in this patent-right generation.
So the little steamer sailed, comforted by these remedies, through the
strait of Safe Nervine, round the bluff of Safe Tonic, into the open bay
of Safe Liver Cure. It was a healing voyage, and one in which enterprise
was so allied with beauty that no utilitarian philosopher could raise a
question as to the market value of the latter.

The voyage continued as far as Gananoque, in Canada, where the
passengers went ashore, and wandered about in a disconsolate way to see
nothing. King said, however, that he was more interested in the place
than in any other he had seen, because there was nothing interesting in
it; it was absolutely without character, or a single peculiarity either
of Canada or of the United States. Indeed, this north shore seemed to
all the party rather bleak even in summertime, and the quality of the
sunshine thin.

It was, of course, a delightful sail, abounding in charming views, up
“lost channels,” through vistas of gleaming water overdrooped by tender
foliage, and now and then great stretches of sea, and always islands,
islands.

“Too many islands too much alike,” at length exclaimed Mrs. Farquhar,
“and too many tasteless cottages and temporary camping structures.”

The performance is, indeed, better than the prospectus. For there are
not merely the poetical Thousand Islands; by actual count there are
sixteen hundred and ninety-two. The artist and Miss Lamont were trying
to sing a fine song they discovered in the Traveler's Guide, inspired
perhaps by that sentimental ditty, “The Isles of Greece, the Isles of
Greece,” beginning,

“O Thousand Isles! O Thousand Isles!”

It seemed to King that a poem might be constructed more in accordance
with the facts and with the scientific spirit of the age. Something like
this:

     “O Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two Isles!
     O Islands 1692!
     Where the fisher spreads his wiles,
     And the muskallonge goes through!
     Forever the cottager gilds the same
     With nightly pyrotechnic flame;
     And it's O the Isles!
     The 1692!”

Aside from the pyrotechnics, the chief occupations of this place
are boating and fishing. Boats abound--row-boats, sail-boats, and
steam-launches for excursion parties. The river consequently presents
an animated appearance in the season, and the prettiest effects are
produced by the white sails dipping about among the green islands. The
favorite boat is a canoe with a small sail stepped forward, which is
steered without centre-board or rudder, merely by a change of position
in the boat of the man who holds the sheet. While the fishermen are
here, it would seem that the long, snaky pickerel is the chief game
pursued and caught. But this is not the case when the fishermen return
home, for then it appears that they have been dealing mainly with
muskallonge, and with bass by the way. No other part of the country
originates so many excellent fish stories as the Sixteen Hundred and
Ninety-two Islands, and King had heard so many of them that he suspected
there must be fish in these waters. That afternoon, when they returned
from Gananoque he accosted an old fisherman who sat in his boat at the
wharf awaiting a customer.

“I suppose there is fishing here in the season?”

The man glanced up, but deigned no reply to such impertinence.

“Could you take us where we would be likely to get any muskallonge?”

“Likely?” asked the man. “What do you suppose I am here for?”

“I beg your pardon. I'm a stranger here. I'd like to try my hand at a
muskallonge. About how do they run here as to size?”

“Well,” said the fisherman, relenting a little, “that depends upon who
takes you out. If you want a little sport, I can take you to it. They
are running pretty well this season, or were a week ago.”

“Is it too late?”

“Well, they are scarcer than they were, unless you know where to go. I
call forty pounds light for a muskallonge; fifty to seventy is about my
figure. If you ain't used to this kind of fishing, and go with me, you'd
better tie yourself in the boat. They are a powerful fish. You see that
little island yonder? A muskallonge dragged me in this boat four times
round that island one day, and just as I thought I was tiring him out he
jumped clean over the island, and I had to cut the line.”

King thought he had heard something like this before, and he engaged
the man for the next day. That evening was the last of the grand
illuminations for the season, and our party went out in the Crossman
steam-launch to see it. Although some of the cottages were vacated, and
the display was not so extensive as in August, it was still marvelously
beautiful, and the night voyage around the illuminated islands was
something long to be remembered.

There were endless devices of colored lamps and lanterns, figures of
crosses, crowns, the Seal of Solomon, and the most strange effects
produced on foliage and in the water by red and green and purple fires.
It was a night of enchantment, and the hotel and its grounds on the dark
background of the night were like the stately pleasure-house in “Kubla
Khan.”

But the season was drawing to an end. The hotels, which could not
find room for the throngs on Saturday night, say, were nearly empty on
Monday, so easy are pleasure-seekers frightened away by a touch of cold,
forgetting that in such a resort the most enjoyable part of the year
comes with the mellow autumn days. That night at ten o'clock the band
was scraping away in the deserted parlor, with not another person in
attendance, without a single listener. Miss Lamont happened to peep
through the window-blinds from the piazza and discover this residuum of
gayety. The band itself was half asleep, but by sheer force of habit it
kept on, the fiddlers drawing the perfunctory bows, and the melancholy
clarionet men breathing their expressive sighs. It was a dismal sight.
The next morning the band had vanished.

The morning was lowering, and a steady rain soon set in for the day.
No fishing, no boating; nothing but drop, drop, and the reminiscence of
past pleasure. Mist enveloped the islands and shut out the view. Even
the spirits of Mrs. Farquhar were not proof against this, and she tried
to amuse herself by reconstructing the season out of the specimens of
guests who remained, who were for the most part young ladies who had
duty written on their faces, and were addicted to spectacles.

“It could not have been,” she thought, “ultrafashionable or madly gay. I
think the good people come here; those who are willing to illuminate.”

“Oh, there is a fast enough life at some of the hotels in the summer,”
 said the artist.

“Very likely. Still, if I were recruiting for schoolmarms, I should come
here. I like it thoroughly, and mean to be here earlier next year.
The scenery is enchanting, and I quite enjoy being with 'Proverbial
Philosophy' people.”

Late in the gloomy afternoon King went down to the office, and the clerk
handed him a letter. He took it eagerly, but his countenance fell when
he saw that it bore a New York postmark, and had been forwarded from
Richfield. It was not from Irene. He put it in his pocket and went
moodily to his room. He was in no mood to read a homily from his uncle.

Ten minutes after, he burst into Forbes's room with the open letter in
his hand.

“See here, old fellow, I'm off to the Profile House. Can you get ready?”

“Get ready? Why, you can't go anywhere tonight.”

“Yes I can. The proprietor says he will send us across to Redwood to
catch the night train for Ogdensburg.”

“But how about the Lachine Rapids? You have been talking about those
rapids for two months. I thought that was what we came here for.”

“Do you want to run right into the smallpox at Montreal?”

“Oh, I don't mind. I never take anything of that sort.”

“But don't you see that it isn't safe for the Lamonts and Mrs. Farquhar
to go there?”

“I suppose not; I never thought of that. You have dragged me all over
the continent, and I didn't suppose there was any way of escaping the
rapids. But what is the row now? Has Irene telegraphed you that she has
got over her chill?”

“Read that letter.”

Forbes took the sheet and read:

“NEW YORK, September 2, 1885.

“MY DEAR STANHOPE,--We came back to town yesterday, and I find a
considerable arrears of business demanding my attention. A suit has
been brought against the Lavalle Iron Company, of which I have been the
attorney for some years, for the possession of an important part of its
territory, and I must send somebody to Georgia before the end of this
month to look up witnesses and get ready for the defense. If you are
through your junketing by that time, it will be an admirable opportunity
for you to learn the practical details of the business.... Perhaps it
may quicken your ardor in the matter if I communicate to you another
fact. Penelope wrote me from Richfield, in a sort of panic, that she
feared you had compromised your whole future by a rash engagement with a
young lady from Cyrusville, Ohio--a Miss Benson-and she asked me to
use my influence with you. I replied to her that I thought that, in the
language of the street, you had compromised your future, if that were
true, for about a hundred cents on the dollar. I have had business
relations with Mr. Benson for twenty years. He is the principal owner
in the Lavalle Iron Mine, and he is one of the most sensible, sound,
and upright men of my acquaintance. He comes of a good old New England
stock, and if his daughter has the qualities of her father and I hear
that she has been exceedingly well educated besides she is not a bad
match even for a Knickerbocker.

“Hoping that you will be able to report at the office before the end of
the month,

“I am affectionately yours,

“SCHUYLER BREVOORT.”


“Well, that's all right,” said the artist, after a pause. “I suppose the
world might go on if you spend another night in this hotel. But if you
must go, I'll bring on the women and the baggage when navigation opens
in the morning.”




XVI. WHITE MOUNTAINS, LENNOX.

The White Mountains are as high as ever, as fine in sharp outline
against the sky, as savage, as tawny; no other mountains in the world
of their height so well keep, on acquaintance, the respect of mankind.
There is a quality of refinement in their granite robustness; their
desolate, bare heights and sky-scraping ridges are rosy in the dawn and
violet at sunset, and their profound green gulfs are still mysterious.
Powerful as man is, and pushing, he cannot wholly vulgarize them. He
can reduce the valleys and the show “freaks” of nature to his own moral
level, but the vast bulks and the summits remain for the most part
haughty and pure.

Yet undeniably something of the romance of adventure in a visit to the
White Hills is wanting, now that the railways penetrate every valley,
and all the physical obstacles of the journey are removed. One can never
again feel the thrill that he experienced when, after a weary all-day
jolting in the stage-coach, or plodding hour after hour on foot, he
suddenly came in view of a majestic granite peak. Never again by the new
rail can he have the sensation that he enjoyed in the ascent of Mount
Washington by the old bridlepath from Crawford's, when, climbing out of
the woods and advancing upon that marvelous backbone of rock, the whole
world opened upon his awed vision, and the pyramid of the summit stood
up in majesty against the sky. Nothing, indeed, is valuable that is
easily obtained. This modern experiment of putting us through the
world--the world of literature, experience, and travel--at excursion
rates is of doubtful expediency.

I cannot but think that the White Mountains are cheapened a little by
the facilities of travel and the multiplication of excellent places of
entertainment. If scenery were a sentient thing, it might feel indignant
at being vulgarly stared at, overrun and trampled on, by a horde of
tourists who chiefly value luxurious hotels and easy conveyance. It
would be mortified to hear the talk of the excursionists, which is more
about the quality of the tables and the beds, and the rapidity with
which the “whole thing can be done,” than about the beauty and the
sublimity of nature. The mountain, however, was made for man, and not
man for the mountain; and if the majority of travelers only get out
of these hills what they are capable of receiving, it may be some
satisfaction to the hills that they still reserve their glories for the
eyes that can appreciate them. Perhaps nature is not sensitive about
being run after for its freaks and eccentricities. If it were, we could
account for the catastrophe, a few years ago, in the Franconia Notch
flume. Everybody went there to see a bowlder which hung suspended
over the stream in the narrow canon. This curiosity attracted annually
thousands of people, who apparently cared more for this toy than
for anything else in the region. And one day, as if tired of this
misdirected adoration, nature organized a dam on the side of Mount
Lafayette, filled it with water, and then suddenly let loose a flood
which tore open the canon, carried the bowlder away, and spread ruin far
and wide. It said as plainly as possible, you must look at me, and not
at my trivial accidents. But man is an ingenious creature, and nature
is no match for him. He now goes, in increasing number, to see where the
bowlder once hung, and spends his time in hunting for it in the acres
of wreck and debris. And in order to satisfy reasonable human curiosity,
the proprietors of the flume have been obliged to select a bowlder and
label it as the one that was formerly the shrine of pilgrimage.

In his college days King had more than once tramped all over this
region, knapsack on back, lodging at chance farmhouses and second-class
hotels, living on viands that would kill any but a robust climber, and
enjoying the life with a keen zest only felt by those who are abroad at
all hours, and enabled to surprise Nature in all her varied moods. It
is the chance encounters that are most satisfactory; Nature is apt to
be whimsical to him who approaches her of set purpose at fixed hours. He
remembered also the jolting stage-coaches, the scramble for places, the
exhilaration of the drive, the excitement of the arrival at the hotels,
the sociability engendered by this juxtaposition and jostle of travel.
It was therefore with a sense of personal injury that, when he reached
Bethlehem junction, he found a railway to the Profile House, and another
to Bethlehem. In the interval of waiting for his train he visited
Bethlehem Street, with its mile of caravansaries, big boarding-houses,
shops, and city veneer, and although he was delighted, as an American,
with the “improvements” and with the air of refinement, he felt that if
he wanted retirement and rural life, he might as well be with the hordes
in the depths of the Adirondack wilderness. But in his impatience to
reach his destination he was not sorry to avail himself of the railway
to the Profile House. And he admired the ingenuity which had carried
this road through nine miles of shabby firs and balsams, in a way
absolutely devoid of interest, in order to heighten the effect of the
surprise at the end in the sudden arrival at the Franconia Notch. From
whichever way this vast white hotel establishment is approached, it is
always a surprise. Midway between Echo Lake and Profile Lake, standing
in the very jaws of the Notch, overhung on the one side by Cannon
Mountain and on the other by a bold spur of Lafayette, it makes
a contrast between the elegance and order of civilization and the
untouched ruggedness and sublimity of nature scarcely anywhere else to
be seen.

The hotel was still full, and when King entered the great lobby and
office in the evening a very animated scene met his eye. A big fire of
logs was blazing in the ample chimney-place; groups were seated about
at ease, chatting, reading, smoking; couples promenaded up and down; and
from the distant parlor, through the long passage, came the sound of
the band. It was easy to see at a glance that the place had a distinct
character, freedom from conventionality, and an air of reposeful
enjoyment. A large proportion of the assembly being residents for the
summer, there was so much of the family content that the transient
tourists could little disturb it by the introduction of their element of
worry and haste.

King found here many acquaintances, for fashion follows a certain
routine, and there is a hidden law by which the White Mountains break
the transition from the sea-coast to Lenox. He was therefore not
surprised to be greeted by Mrs. Cortlandt, who had arrived the day
before with her usual train.

“At the end of the season,” she said, “and alone?”

“I expect to meet friends here.”

“So did I; but they have gone, or some of them have.”

“But mine are coming tomorrow. Who has gone?”

“Mrs. Pendragon and the Bensons. But I didn't suppose I could tell you
any news about the Bensons.”

“I have been out of the way of the newspapers lately. Did you happen to
hear where they have gone?”

“Somewhere around the mountains. You need not look so indifferent; they
are coming back here again. They are doing what I must do; and I wish
you would tell me what to see. I have studied the guide-books till my
mind is a blank. Where shall I go?”

“That depends. If you simply want to enjoy yourselves, stay at this
hotel--there is no better place--sit on the piazza, look at the
mountains, and watch the world as it comes round. If you want the best
panoramic view of the mountains, the Washington and Lafayette ranges
together, go up to the Waumbec House. If you are after the best single
limited view in the mountains, drive up to the top of Mount Willard,
near the Crawford House--a delightful place to stay in a region full of
associations, Willey House, avalanche, and all that. If you would like
to take a walk you will remember forever, go by the carriage road from
the top of Mount Washington to the Glen House, and look into the great
gulfs, and study the tawny sides of the mountains. I don't know anything
more impressive hereabouts than that. Close to, those granite ranges
have the color of the hide of the rhinoceros; when you look up to them
from the Glen House, shouldering up into the sky, and rising to the
cloud-clapped summit of Washington, it is like a purple highway into
the infinite heaven. No, you must not miss either Crawford's or the Glen
House; and as to Mount Washington, that is a duty.”

“You might personally conduct us and expound by the way.”

King said he would like nothing better. Inquiry failed to give him any
more information of the whereabouts of the Bensons; but the clerk said
they were certain to return to the Profile House. The next day the party
which had been left behind at Alexandria Bay appeared, in high spirits,
and ready for any adventure. Mrs. Farquhar declared at once that she had
no scruples about going up Washington, commonplace as the trip was,
for her sympathies were now all with the common people. Of course Mount
Washington was of no special importance, now that the Black Mountains
were in the Union, but she hadn't a bit of prejudice.

King praised her courage and her patriotism. But perhaps she did not
know how much she risked. He had been talking with some habitue's of the
Profile, who had been coming here for years, and had just now for the
first time been up Mount Washington, and they said that while the trip
was pleasant enough, it did not pay for the exertion. Perhaps Mrs.
Farquhar did not know that mountain-climbing was disapproved of here as
sea-bathing was at Newport. It was hardly the thing one would like
to do, except, of course, as a mere lark, and, don't you know, with a
party.

Mrs. Farquhar said that was just the reason she wanted to go. She was
willing to make any sacrifice; she considered herself just a missionary
of provincialism up North, where people had become so cosmopolitan
that they dared not enjoy anything. She was an enemy of the Boston
philosophy. What is the Boston philosophy? Why, it is not to care about
anything you do care about.

The party that was arranged for this trip included Mrs. Cortlandt
and her bevy of beauty and audacity, Miss Lamont and her uncle, Mrs.
Farquhar, the artist, and the desperate pilgrim of love. Mrs. Farquhar
vowed to Forbes that she had dragged King along at the request of the
proprietor of the hotel, who did not like to send a guest away, but he
couldn't have all the trees at Profile Lake disfigured with his cutting
and carving. People were running to him all the while to know what it
meant with “I. B.,” “I. B.,” “I. B.,” everywhere, like a grove of
Baal.

From the junction to Fabyan's they rode in an observation car, all open,
and furnished with movable chairs, where they sat as in a balcony. It
was a picturesque load of passengers. There were the young ladies in
trim traveling-suits, in what is called compact fighting trim; ladies in
mourning; ladies in winter wraps; ladies in Scotch wraps; young men with
shawl-straps and opera-glasses, standing, legs astride, consulting maps
and imparting information; the usual sweet pale girl with a bundle of
cat-tails and a decorative intention; and the nonchalant young man in
a striped English boating cap, who nevertheless spoke American when he
said anything.

As they were swinging slowly along the engine suddenly fell into
a panic, puffing and sending up shrill shrieks of fear in rapid
succession. There was a sedate cow on the track. The engine was
agitated, it shrieked more shrilly, and began backing in visible terror.
Everybody jumped and stood up, and the women clung to the men, all
frightened. It was a beautiful exhibition of the sweet dependence of the
sex in the hour of danger. The cow was more terrible than a lion on the
track. The passengers all trembled like the engine. In fact, the only
calm being was the cow, which, after satisfying her curiosity, walked
slowly off, wondering what it was all about.

The cog-wheel railway is able to transport a large number of
excursionists to the top of the mountain in the course of the morning.
The tourists usually arrive there about the time the mist has crept
up from the valleys and enveloped everything. Our party had the common
experience. The Summit House, the Signal Station, the old Tip-top House,
which is lashed down with cables, and rises ten feet higher than the
highest crag, were all in the clouds. Nothing was to be seen except the
dim outline of these buildings.

“I wonder,” said Mrs. Farquhar, as they stumbled along over the slippery
stones, “what people come here for.”

“Just what we came for,” answered Forbes, “to say they have been on top
of the mountain.”

They took refuge in the hotel, but that also was invaded by the damp,
chill atmosphere, wrapped in and pervaded by the clouds. From the
windows nothing more was to be seen than is visible in a Russian steam
bath. But the tourists did not mind. They addressed themselves to the
business in hand. This was registering their names. A daily newspaper
called Among the Clouds is published here, and every person who gets his
name on the register in time can see it in print before the train goes.
When the train descends, every passenger has one of these two-cent
certificates of his exploit. When our party entered, there was a great
run on the register, especially by women, who have a repugnance, as is
well known, to seeing their names in print. In the room was a hot stove,
which was more attractive than the cold clouds, but unable to compete in
interest with the register. The artist, who seemed to be in a sardonic
mood, and could get no chance to enter his name, watched the scene,
while his friends enjoyed the view of the stove. After registering,
the visitors all bought note-paper with a chromo heading, “Among the
Clouds,” and a natural wild-flower stuck on the corner, and then rushed
to the writing-room in order to indite an epistle “from the summit.”
 This is indispensable.

After that they were ready for the Signal Station. This is a great
attraction. The sergeant in charge looked bored to death, and in the
mood to predict the worst kind of weather. He is all day beset with a
crowd craning their necks to look at him, and bothered with ten thousand
questions. He told King that the tourists made his life miserable;
they were a great deal worse than the blizzards in the winter. And the
government, he said, does not take this into account in his salary.

Occasionally there was an alarm that the mist was getting thin, that the
clouds were about to break, and a rush was made out-of-doors, and the
tourists dispersed about on the rocks. They were all on the qui vine to
see the hotel or the boarding-house they had left in the early morning.
Excursionists continually swarmed in by rail or by carriage road. The
artist, who had one of his moods for wanting to see nature, said there
were too many women; he wanted to know why there were always so many
women on excursions. “You can see nothing but excursionists; whichever
way you look, you see their backs.” These backs, looming out of the
mist, or discovered in a rift, seemed to enrage him.

At length something actually happened. The curtain of cloud slowly
lifted, exactly as in a theatre; for a moment there was a magnificent
view of peaks, forests, valleys, a burst of sunshine on the lost world,
and then the curtain dropped, amid a storm of “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” and
intense excitement. Three or four times, as if in response to the call
of the spectators, this was repeated, the curtain lifting every time
on a different scene, and then it was all over, and the heavy mist
shut down on the registered and the unregistered alike. But everybody
declared that they preferred it this way; it was so much better to have
these wonderful glimpses than a full view. They would go down and brag
over their good-fortune.

The excursionists by-and-by went away out of the clouds, gliding
breathlessly down the rails. When snow covers this track, descent is
sometimes made on a toboggan, but it is such a dangerous venture that
all except the operatives are now forbidden to try it. The velocity
attained of three and a half miles in three minutes may seem nothing
to a locomotive engineer who is making up time; it might seem slow to a
lover whose sweetheart was at the foot of the slide; to ordinary mortals
a mile a minute is quite enough on such an incline.

Our party, who would have been much surprised if any one had called
them an excursion, went away on foot down the carriage road to the Glen
House. A descent of a few rods took them into the world of light and
sun, and they were soon beyond the little piles of stones which mark the
spots where tourists have sunk down bewildered in the mist and died of
exhaustion and cold. These little mounds help to give Mount Washington
its savage and implacable character. It is not subdued by all the roads
and rails and scientific forces. For days it may lie basking and smiling
in the sun, but at any hour it is liable to become inhospitable and
pitiless, and for a good part of the year the summit is the area of
elemental passion.

How delightful it was to saunter down the winding road into a region
of peace and calm; to see from the safe highway the great giants in all
their majesty; to come to vegetation, to the company of familiar trees,
and the haunts of men! As they reached the Glen House all the line
of rugged mountain-peaks was violet in the reflected rays. There were
people on the porch who were looking at this spectacle. Among them the
eager eyes of King recognized Irene.

“Yes, there she is,” cried Mrs. Farquhar; “and there--oh, what a
treacherous North----is Mr. Meigs also.”

It was true. There was Mr. Meigs, apparently domiciled with the Benson
family. There might have been a scene, but fortunately the porch was
full of loungers looking at the sunset, and other pedestrians in couples
and groups were returning from afternoon strolls. It might be the
crisis of two lives, but to the spectator nothing more was seen than the
everyday meeting of friends and acquaintances. A couple say good-night
at the door of a drawing-room. Nothing has happened--nothing except a
look, nothing except the want of pressure of the hand. The man lounges
off to the smoking-room, cool and indifferent; the woman, in her
chamber, falls into a passion of tears, and at the end of a wakeful
night comes into a new world, hard and cold and uninteresting. Or the
reverse happens. It is the girl who tosses the thing off with a smile,
perhaps with a sigh, as the incident of a season, while the man, wounded
and bitter, loses a degree of respect for woman, and pitches his life
henceforth on a lower plane.

In the space of ten steps King passed through an age of emotions,
but the strongest one steadied him. There was a general movement,
exclamations, greetings, introductions. King was detained a moment by
Mr. and Mrs. Benson; he even shook hands with Mr. Meigs, who had the
tact to turn immediately from the group and talk with somebody else;
while Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Lamont and Mrs. Cortlandt precipitated
themselves upon Irene in a little tempest of cries and caresses and
delightful feminine fluttering. Truth to say, Irene was so overcome by
these greetings that she had not the strength to take a step forward
when King at length approached her. She stood with one hand grasping
the back of the chair. She knew that that moment would decide her life.
Nothing is more admirable in woman, nothing so shows her strength, as
her ability to face in public such a moment. It was the critical moment
for King--how critical the instant was, luckily, he did not then know.
If there had been in his eyes any doubt, any wavering, any timidity, his
cause would have been lost. But there was not. There was infinite love
and tenderness, but there was also resolution, confidence, possession,
mastery. There was that that would neither be denied nor turned aside,
nor accept any subterfuge. If King had ridden up on a fiery steed,
felled Meigs with his “mailed hand,” and borne away the fainting girl on
his saddle pommel, there could have been no more doubt of his resolute
intention. In that look all the mists of doubt that her judgment had
raised in Irene's mind to obscure love vanished. Her heart within her
gave a great leap of exultation that her lover was a man strong enough
to compel, strong enough to defend. At that instant she knew that she
could trust him against the world. In that moment, while he still held
her hand, she experienced the greatest joy that woman ever knows--the
bliss of absolute surrender.

“I have come,” he said, “in answer to your letter. And this is my
answer.”

She had it in his presence, and read it in his eyes. With the delicious
sense thrilling her that she was no longer her own master there came
a new timidity. She had imagined that if ever she should meet Mr. King
again, she should defend her course, and perhaps appear in his eyes in a
very heroic attitude. Now she only said, falteringly, and looking down,
“I--I hoped you would come.”

That evening there was a little dinner given in a private parlor by Mr.
Benson in honor of the engagement of his daughter. It was great larks
for the young ladies whom Mrs. Cortlandt was chaperoning, who behaved
with an elaboration of restraint and propriety that kept Irene in a
flutter of uneasiness. Mr. Benson, in mentioning the reason for the
“little spread,” told the story of Abraham Lincoln's sole response
to Lord Lyons, the bachelor minister of her majesty, when he came
officially to announce the marriage of the Prince of Wales--“Lord Lyons,
go thou and do likewise;” and he looked at Forbes when he told it, which
made Miss Lamont blush, and appear what the artist had described her
to King--the sweetest thing in life. Mrs. Benson beamed with motherly
content, and was quite as tearful as ungrammatical, but her mind was
practical and forecasting. “There'll have to be,” she confided to Miss
Lamont, “more curtains in the parlor, and I don't know but new paper.”
 Mr. Meigs was not present. Mrs. Farquhar noticed this, and Mrs. Benson
remembered that he had said something about going down to North Conway,
which gave King an opportunity to say to Mrs. Farquhar that she ought
not to despair, for Mr. Meigs evidently moved in a circle, and was
certain to cross her path again. “I trust so,” she replied. “I've been
his only friend through all this miserable business.” The dinner was not
a great success. There was too much self-consciousness all round, and
nobody was witty and brilliant.

The next morning King took Irene to the Crystal Cascade. When he used
to frequent this pretty spot as a college boy, it had seemed to him the
ideal place for a love scene-much better than the steps of a hotel.
He said as much when they were seated at the foot of the fall. It is a
charming cascade fed by the water that comes down Tuckerman's Ravine.
But more beautiful than the fall is the stream itself, foaming down
through the bowlders, or lying in deep limpid pools which reflect the
sky and the forest. The water is as cold as ice and as clear as cut
glass; few mountain streams in the world, probably, are so absolutely
without color. “I followed it up once,” King was saying, by way of
filling in the pauses with personal revelations, “to the source. The
woods on the side are dense and impenetrable, and the only way was to
keep in the stream and climb over the bowlders. There are innumerable
slides and cascades and pretty falls, and a thousand beauties and
surprises. I finally came to a marsh, a thicket of alders, and around
this the mountain closed in an amphitheatre of naked perpendicular rock
a thousand feet high. I made my way along the stream through the
thicket till I came to a great bank and arch of snow--it was the last of
July--from under which the stream flowed. Water dripped in many little
rivulets down the face of the precipices--after a rain there are said to
be a thousand cascades there. I determined to climb to the summit,
and go back by the Tip-top House. It does not look so from a little
distance, but there is a rough, zigzag sort of path on one side of the
amphitheatre, and I found this, and scrambled up. When I reached the top
the sun was shining, and although there was nothing around me but piles
of granite rocks, without any sign of a path, I knew that I had my
bearings so that I could either reach the house or a path leading to it.
I stretched myself out to rest a few moments, and suddenly the scene
was completely shut in by a fog. [Irene put out her hand and touched
King's.] I couldn't tell where the sun was, or in what direction the hut
lay, and the danger was that I would wander off on a spur, as the lost
usually do. But I knew where the ravine was, for I was still on the edge
of it.”

“Why,” asked Irene, trembling at the thought of that danger so long
ago--“why didn't you go back down the ravine?”

“Because,” and King took up the willing little hand and pressed it to
his lips, and looked steadily in her eyes--“because that is not my
way. It was nothing. I made what I thought was a very safe calculation,
starting from the ravine as a base, to strike the Crawford bridle-path
at least a quarter of a mile west of the house. I hit it--but it shows
how little one can tell of his course in a fog--I struck it within a
rod of the house! It was lucky for me that I did not go two rods further
east.”

Ah me! how real and still present the peril seemed to the girl! “You
will solemnly promise me, solemnly, will you not, Stanhope, never to go
there again--never--without me?”

The promise was given. “I have a note,” said King, after the promise was
recorded and sealed, “to show you. It came this morning. It is from Mrs.
Bartlett Glow.”

“Perhaps I'd rather not see it,” said Irene, a little stiffly.

“Oh, there is a message to you. I'll read it.”

It was dated at Newport.

   “MY DEAR STANHOPE,--The weather has changed. I hope it is more
   congenial where you are. It is horrid here. I am in a bad humor,
   chiefly about the cook. Don't think I'm going to inflict a letter
   on you. You don't deserve it besides. But I should like to know
   Miss Benson's address. We shall be at home in October, late, and I
   want her to come and make me a little visit. If you happen to see
   her, give her my love, and believe me your affectionate cousin,
                       PENELOPE.”

The next day they explored the wonders of the Notch, and the next were
back in the serene atmosphere of the Profile House. How lovely it all
was; how idyllic; what a bloom there was on the hills; how amiable
everybody seemed; how easy it was to be kind and considerate! King
wished he could meet a beggar at every turn. I know he made a great
impression on some elderly maiden ladies at the hotel, who thought him
the most gentlemanly and good young man they had ever seen. Ah! if one
could always be in love and always young!

They went one day by invitation, Irene and Marion and King and the
artist--as if it made any difference where they went--to Lonesome Lake,
a private pond and fishing-lodge on the mountain-top, under the ledge of
Cannon. There, set in a rim of forest and crags, lies a charming little
lake--which the mountain holds like a mirror for the sky and the clouds
and the sailing hawks--full of speckled trout, which have had to be
educated by skillful sportsmen to take the fly. From this lake one sees
the whole upper range of Lafayette, gray and purple against the sky. On
the bank is a log cabin touched with color, with great chimneys, and as
luxuriously comfortable as it is picturesque.

While dinner was preparing, the whole party were on the lake in boats,
equipped with fishing apparatus, and if the trout had been in half as
willing humor as the fisher, it would have been a bad day for them. But
perhaps they apprehended that it was merely a bridal party, and they
were leaping all over the lake, flipping their tails in the sun, and
scorning all the visible wiles. Fish, they seemed to say, are not so
easily caught as men.

There appeared to be a good deal of excitement in the boat that
carried the artist and Miss Lamont. It was fly-fishing under extreme
difficulties. The artist, who kept his flies a good deal of the time out
of the boat, frankly confessed that he would prefer an honest worm and
hook, or a net, or even a grappling-iron. Miss Lamont, with a great deal
of energy, kept her line whirling about, and at length, on a successful
cast, landed the artist's hat among the water-lilies. There was nothing
discouraging in this, and they both resumed operations with cheerfulness
and enthusiasm. But the result of every other cast was entanglement of
each other's lines, and King noticed that they spent most of their time
together in the middle of the boat, getting out of snarls. And at last,
drifting away down to the outlet, they seemed to have given up fishing
for the more interesting occupation. The clouds drifted on; the fish
leaped; the butcher-bird called from the shore; the sun was purpling
Lafayette. There were kinks in the leader that would not come out, the
lines were inextricably tangled. The cook made the signals for dinner,
and sent his voice echoing over the lake time and again before these
devoted anglers heard or heeded. At last they turned the prow to the
landing, Forbes rowing, and Marion dragging her hand in the water, and
looking as if she had never cast a line. King was ready to pull the boat
on to the float, and Irene stood by the landing expectant. In the bottom
of the boat was one poor little trout, his tail curled up and his spots
faded.

“Whose trout is that?” asked Irene.

“It belongs to both of us,” said Forbes, who seemed to have some
difficulty in adjusting his oars.

“But who caught it?”

“Both of us,” said Marion, stepping out of the boat; “we really did.”
 There was a heightened color in her face and a little excitement in her
manner as she put her arm round Irene's waist and they walked up to the
cabin. “Yes, it is true, but you are not to say anything about it yet,
dear, for Mr. Forbes has to make his way, you know.”

When they walked down the mountain the sun was setting. Half-way down,
at a sharp turn in the path, the trees are cut away just enough to
make a frame, in which Lafayette appears like an idealized picture of
a mountain. The sun was still on the heights, which were calm, strong,
peaceful. They stood gazing at this heavenly vision till the rose had
deepened into violet, and then with slow steps descended through the
fragrant woods.

In October no region in the North has a monopoly of beauty, but there
is a certain refinement, or it may be a repose, in the Berkshire Hills
which is in a manner typical of a distinct phase of American fashion.
There is here a note of country life, of retirement, suggestive of the
old-fashioned “country-seat.” It is differentiated from the caravansary
or the cottage life in the great watering-places. Perhaps it expresses
in a sincerer way an innate love of rural existence. Perhaps it is only
a whim of fashion. Whatever it may be, there is here a moment of pause,
a pensive air of the closing scene. The estates are ample, farms in
fact, with a sort of villa and park character, woods, pastures, meadows.
When the leaves turn crimson and brown and yellow, and the frequent
lakes reflect the tender sky and the glory of the autumn foliage, there
is much driving over the hills from country place to country place;
there are lawn-tennis parties on the high lawns, whence the players in
the pauses of the game can look over vast areas of lovely country;
there are open-air fetes, chance meetings at the clubhouse, chats on the
highway, walking excursions, leisurely dinners. In this atmosphere one
is on the lookout for an engagement, and a wedding here has a certain
eclat. When one speaks of Great Barrington or Stockbridge or Lenox in
the autumn, a certain idea of social position is conveyed.

Did Their Pilgrimage end on these autumn heights? To one of them, I
know, the colored landscape, the dreamy atmosphere, the unique glory
that comes in October days, were only ecstatic suggestions of the life
that opened before her. Love is victorious over any mood of nature, even
when exquisite beauty is used to heighten the pathos of decay. Irene
raved about the scenery. There is no place in the world beautiful enough
to have justified her enthusiasm, and there is none ugly enough to have
killed it.

I do not say that Irene's letters to Mr. King were entirely taken up
with descriptions of the beauty of Lenox. That young gentleman had gone
on business to Georgia. Mr. and Mrs. Benson were in Cyrusville. Irene
was staying with Mrs. Farquhar at the house of a friend. These letters
had a great deal of Lovers' Latin in them--enough to have admitted the
writer into Yale College if this were a qualification. The letters
she received were equally learned, and the fragments Mrs. Farquhar was
permitted to hear were so interrupted by these cabalistic expressions
that she finally begged to be excused. She said she did not doubt that
to be in love was a liberal education, but pedantry was uninteresting.
Latin might be convenient at this stage; but later on, for little tiffs
and reconciliations, French would be much more useful.

One of these letters southward described a wedding. The principals in it
were unknown to King, but in the minute detail of the letter there was a
personal flavor which charmed him. He would have been still more charmed
could he have seen the girl's radiant face as she dashed it off. Mrs.
Farquhar watched her with a pensive interest awhile, went behind her
chair, and, leaning over, kissed her forehead, and then with slow step
and sad eyes passed out to the piazza, and stood with her face to the
valley and the purple hills. But it was a faded landscape she saw.






End of Project Gutenberg's Their Pilgrimage, by Charles Dudley Warner