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

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

"Me? Why so?"

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

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

"And I hope you are not sorry that I—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That seems to me rather a melancholy history."

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

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

"Oh, I'm quite subdued."

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

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

"Say on."

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

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

"You may say what you like about Mr. Meigs."

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

"Thank you."

"He is full of information, and so unobtrusive—"

"I hadn't noticed that."

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

"Mr. Meigs give a german!"—[Dance, cotillion—always lively. D.W.]

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

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



IX

OLD SWEET AND WHITE SULFUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And you mean," said King, "that frankness and impulse cover a multitude of—"

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

"Well?"

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

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

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

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

"I'm afraid I did not."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, I never said anything of the kind."

"But you looked it. It is all the same."

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

"Irene!"

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

"You must listen, Irene. I love you—I love you."

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

"Is it all true?"

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

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

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

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

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

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



X

LONG BRANCH, OCEAN GROVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XI

SARATOGA

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

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

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

"You here?" was his abrupt and involuntary exclamation.

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

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

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

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

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

"You mean provincial life. Everybody knows everybody else."

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

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

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

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

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

"And who else?"

"Oh, the Storbes from New Orleans, the Slifers from Mobile—no end of people—some from Philadelphia—and Ohio."

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

"Yes, those Bensons, Penelope. Why not?"

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

"I trust not," said King stoutly. "We are engaged."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XII

LAKE GEORGE, AND SARATOGA AGAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XIII

RICHFIELD SPRINGS, COOPERSTOWN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So you have," she replied. "There is nothing—nothing at least that changes my feeling towards you."