Their Pilgrimage by Charles Dudley Warner (page 3)

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