-r.,.^y /J BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Hcnrg W. Sage Z891 AS^xis. (-l-4-l-g^- Cornell University Library PS 3152.T36 3 1924 022 208 858 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022208858 $ '4-f4.-^ r\ 1! -.V ^Jlk" M, 1 NF ^IV <^ 'N BY fflEtSBilCfyilfiCR ILLUSTEATEP P ITi /T- Copyright, 1886, by Harper & BrotheeSo AU Tiglils rtstmd. CONTENTS. ChaF'Tkr Page I. Fortress jMoxboe 1 II. Cape May. Atlaktic City 27 III. The Catskills 54 IV. NE-wroKT 94 V. Narraoaksett Pier and Newrort aoaiis'; Mar- tha's "\'lXEYAi:i) AKD PlYJIOCTII 119 Yl. Maxciiester-by-tiie-Sea, Isles of Shoals .... 154 MI. Bar Harbor 173 VIII. Natural Bridge, White Sulphur 203 IX, Old S\yeet axd White Sulphur 325 X. Long Branch, Ocean Grove 339 XI. Saratoga 350 XII. Lake George, Saratoga again 369 XIII. Richfield Springs, Cooperstown 381 XIV. Niagara 297 XV, The Thousand Isles 316 XVI, White Mou^"tains, Lenox 337 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page ARRIVAL AT FORTRESS MONROE 3 AN EXCURSION 10 AT THE CONSERVATORY 19 A DEFENDER OP niS COUNTRY 24 THE GOVERNMENT WHARF, FORTRESS MONROE 26 ON THE PIER, CAPE MAY 33 UNCLE NED ADJUSTING THE TELESCOPE 39 JERSEY TYPES 41 ATLANTIC CITY 45 RIP VAN WINKLE 57 THE BRIDE FROM KANKAZOO 61 EXCURSIONISTS 67 THE artist's FAVORITE OCCUPATION 74 the ascent to katerskill falls 76 the invalid girl 78 on the red path 80 "the danger increased as she descended" 83 at the casino, newport 88 memi5ei;s of the institute - . . 93 five-o'clock tea 107 a catamaran 131 caught by the tide 136 "MINISTERING angels" AT THE SEA-SIDE HOTEL .... 133 vi Illustrations. P»OE AN INTEEIOE 136 "A CARICATUEE OF HUMANITY" 141 LAST GLDIPSE OP MARTHA'S VINEYARD 142 THE MODEL HUSBAND 145 ' ' LOOKINCi SEAWARD, AS "WAS THE WONT OF PURITAN maidens" 150 THE last passenger 161 A MINIATURE HARBOR 164 ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL 167 "A NOOK TO DREAM IN AND MAKE LOVE IN " 170 ON THE PIAZZA AT RODICK'S 176 BALLROOM ETIQUETTE 179 CANOEING AT BAR HARBOR 181 CLIMBING UP NEWPORT 188 A BAR HARBOR BUCK-BOARD 189 INDIAN VILLAGE, BAR HARBOR 191 THE WATERMELON PARTY 197 KEGEO WAITER 206 "haven't I WAITED ON YOU BEFO', SAH ?" 207 POLITICS AND CIGARS 214 THE MORNING GERMAN 215 FLIRTATION ON THE LAWN 219 COLONEL FANE 323 "THE ANXIOUS FACES OP THE MOTHERS" 225 COLORED NURSES 227 "SHE WAS IN HIS ARMS" 037 AT THE RACES 243 A DEm; TO ELBEBON 244 IN THE SURF 247 "SOLEMN MEN WHO SAID LITTLE, BUT LOOIiLED RICH". . 252 MORNING AT THE SPRING 255 lUustrations. vn Page AN "officer" 261 ON TITE BOAT, LAKE GE01!(;E 270 A BROOM DRILL, LAKE GEORGE 375 "THE OATEN PIBE UNDER THE SPREADING MAPLES". . . 282 "LET US PASS UNDER THE FESTOONS OF THE IIOP-VINES " 383 IN THE SMOKING-ROOM 287 "why, WHAT HAS COME OVER VOU, OLD MAN" 294 "WHO SAID 'fancy' AND 'NOW, REALLY!'" 398 ML'ZZLED IIACKMEN 308 A PARTY IN OIL-SKINS 309 "A BAND OF INDIANS" 317 ILU'MINATING 333 ALEXANDRIA BAY 325 "A SORT OP LINEN-DUSTER CONGREGATION" 328 A FISHERMAN 331 A HALT FOR THE VIE^N' 338 THE OBSERVATION CAR 345 AN EPISTLE FROJI THE SUMMIT 347 THE CLOUDS BREAKINC+ 349 FISHING-LODGE, LONESOME LAKE 357 "THE LINES WERE INEXTRICABLY TANCtLED " 359 THE END 363 CflAPTER I. When Irene looked out of her stateroom window early in the morning of the twentieth of March, there was a softness and luminous quality in the horizon clouds that prophesied spring. The steamboat, which had left Baltimore and an arctic temperature the ]nght before, was drawing near the wharf at Fortress Monroe, and the passengers, most of whom were seek- ing a mild climate, were crowding the guards, eager- ly scanning the long fa9ade of the Ilygeia Hotel. "It looks more like a conservatory than a hotel," said Irene to her father, as she joined him. "I expect that's about A\hat it is. All those long corridors above and below enclosed in glass are to jirotect the hothouse plants of Now York and Bos- ton, who call it a Winter llesort, and I guess there's considerable winter in it." " But how charming it is — the soft sea air, the low capes yonder, the sails in the opening shining in the haze, and the peaceful old fort! I think it's just en- chanting." "I suppose it is. Get a thousand people crowded into one hotel under glass, and let 'em buzz around — 1 2 Their Pilgrimage. that seems to be the present notion of enjoyment. I guess your mother'll like it." And she did. Mrs. Benson, who appeared at the moment, a little flurried with her hasty toilet, a stout, matronly person, rather overdressed for travelling, ex- claimed: "What a homelike looking plaeel I do hope the Stimpsons are here I" "No doubt the Stimpsons are on hand,"' said Mr, Benson. " Catch them not knowing what's the right thing to do in March! They know just as well as you do that the Reynoldses and the Van Peagrims are here." The crowd of passengers, alert to register and se- cure rooms, hurried up the Avindy wharf. The inte- rior of the hotel kept the promise of the outside for comfort. Behind the glass-defended verandas, in the spacious ofKce and general lounging-room, sea-coal fires glowed in the wide grates, tables were heaped with newspapers and the illustrated pamphlets in which railway's and hotels set forth the advantages of leaving home ; luxurious chairs invited the lazy and the tired, and the hotel-bureau, telegraph-office, railway-office, and post-office showed the new-comer that even in this resort he was still in the centre of activity and uneasiness. The Bensons, who had for- tunately secured rooms a month in advance, sat quiet- ly waiting while the crowd filed before the retrister, and took its fate from the courteous autocrat behind the counter. " jSTo room," was the nearly uniform an- swer, and the travellers had the satisfaction of writ- ing their names and going their way in search of en- tertainment. "We've eight hundred people stowed '% J 7 /> It' -fa~-jj,iTFl ^r^ «>,i £«3 ' — ' Itis: AliKIVAL AT FORTRESS JIOKROE. away," said the clerk, "and not a spot left for a Len to roost." At the end of the file Irene noticed a gentleman, clad in a perfectly-fitting rongh travelling suit, with 4 Their Pilgrimage. the inevitable crocodile hand-bag and tightly-rolled umbrella, who made no effort to enroll ahead of any one else, but having procured some letters from the post-office clerk, patiently waited till the rest were turned away, and then put down his name. He might as well have written it in his hat. The deliberation of the man, who appeared to be an old traveller, though probably not more than thirty years of age, attracted Irene's attention, and she could not help hearing the dialogue that followed. " What can you do for me '?"' "Nothing," said the clerk. "Can't you stow me away anywhere? It is Satur- day, and verjr inconvenient for me to go any farther." " Cannot help that. We haven't an inch of room." " Well, where can I go ?" " You can go to Baltimore. You can go to Wash- ington ; or you can go to Richmond this afternoon. You can go anywhere." "Couldn't I," said the stranger, with the same de- liberation — " wouldn't you let me go to Charleston ?" "Why," said the clerk, a little surprised, but dis- posed to accommodate — " why, yes, you can go to Charleston. If you take at once the boat you have just left, I guess you can catch the train at Xor- folk." As the traveller turned and called a porter to re- ship his baggage, he was met by a lady, who greeted him -with the cordiality of an old acquaintance and a volley of Cjuestions. " Why, Mr. King, this is good luck. When did you come ? have you a good room ? What, no, not going ?" Their Pilgrimage. 5 ]Mr. King explained that be bad been a resident of Hampton Roads just fifteen minutes, and that, liav- ing bad a pretty good view of tlie place, lie was then making bis way out of tbe door to Cliarleston, witb- out any breakfast, because tbere was no room in tbe inn. "Ob, tbat never'U do. Tbat cannot be permitted," said bis engaging friend, witb an air of determination. " ]5esides, I want you to go witb us on an excursion to-day up tbe James and help me chaperon a lot of young ladies. No, you cannot go away." And before j\Ir. Stanhope King — for tbat was the name the traveller bad inscribed on the register — knew exactly what had happened, by some mysteri- ous power which women can exercise even in a hotel, when they choose, he found himself in possession of a room, and was gayly breakfasting witb a mei'ry party at a little round table in the dining-room. " He appears to know everybody," was Mrs. Ben- son's comment to Irene, as she observed bis greeting of one and another as the guests tardily came down to breakfast. " Anyway, he's a genteel-looking party. I wonder if he belongs to Sotor, King, and Co., of New York ?" "Ob, mother," began Irene, witb a quick glance at the people at the next table; and then, "if he is a genteel party, very likely he's a drummer. The drummers know everybody." And Irene confined her attention strictly to her breakfast, and never looked up, although Mrs. Ben- son kept prattling away about the young man's ap- pearance, wondering if bis eyes were dark blue or 6 Their Pilgrimage. only (lark gray, and why he didn't part his hair ex- actly in the middle and done with it, and a full, close beard was becoming, and he had a good, frank face anyway, and wb}- didn't the Stimpsons come down ; and, "Oh, there's the Van Peagrims," and Mrs. Ben- son bowed sweetly and repeatedly to somebody across the room. To an angel, or even to that approach to an angel in this world, a person who has satisfied his appetite, the spectacle of a crowd of jieople feeding together in a lai'ge room must be a little humiliating. The fact is that no animal appears at its l:>est in this neces- sary occupation. But a hotel breakfast-i'oora is not without interest. The very way in which peojjle en- ter the room is a revelation of character. 3Ir. King, who was put in good-h\inior by falling on his feet, as it were, in such agreeable company, amused himself by studying the guests as they entered. There was the portly, florid man, who "swelled" in, patronizing the entire room, followed bj' a meek little wife and three timid children. There was the broad, dowager woman, preceded by a meek, shrinking little man, ^^'hose whole appearance was an apology. There was a modest young couple who looked exceedingly self- conscious and happ}', and another couple, not quite so young, who were not conscious of anybody, the gen- tleman giving a curt order to the waiter, and falling at once to reading a newspaper, while his wife took a listless attitude, which seemed to have become second nature. There were two very tall, very graceful, very high-bred girls in semi-mourning, accompanied by a nice lad in tight clothes, a model of propriety and TJu'ir PilijrbiKujf. 7 slfiiclcr physical resources, who perfectly reflected the gracious elevation of his sisters. There was a jjropon- deranee of women, as is apt to he the case in such re- sorts. A fact explicahle not on the theory that Avoni- en are more delicate than men, but that American men are too busy to take this soit of relaxation, and that the care of an establislimeut, with the demands of society and the worrj' of servants, so draw upon the nervous energy of women that they are glad to escape occasionally to the irresponsibility of hotel life. j\[r. King noticed that many of the ^\•omen had the unmistakable air of familiarity with this sort of life, both in the dining-room and at the office, and were not nearly so timid as some of the men. And this was very observable in the case of the girls, who were chaperoning their mothers — slirinking woinen who seemed a little confused by the bustle, and a lit- tle awed by the machinery of the great caravansary. At length ]Mr. King's eye fell upon the Benson group. Usually it is unfortunate that a young lady should be observed for the first time at table. The act of eating is apt to be disenchanting. It needs considerable infatuation and perhaps true love on the part of a young man to make him see anything agree- able in this i)crformance. However attractive a girl may be, the man may be sure that he is not in love if his admiration cannot stand this test. It is saying a great deal for Irene that she did staml this test even under the observation of a stranger, and that she han- dled her fork, not to put too line a point u])on it, in a manner to make the fastidious Mr. King desirous to see more of her. I am aware that this is a very un- 8 Their Pilgrimage. romantic view to take of one of the sweetest subjects in life, and I am free to confess that I should prefer that Mr. King should first have seen Irene leaning on the balustrade of the gallery, with a rose in her hand, gazing out over the sea with "that far-awa)^ look in her eyes." It would have made it much easier for all of us. But it is better to tell the truth, and let the girl appear in the heroic attitude of being superior to her circumstances. Presently Mr. King said to his friend, Mrs. Cort- landt, "Who is that clever-looking, graceful girl over there ?" " That," said Mrs. Cortlandt, looking intently in the direction indicated — " why, so it is; that's just the thing," and without another word she darted across the room, and Mr. King saw her in animated conver- sation with the young lady. Returning with satisfac- tion expressed in her face, she continued, "Yes, she'll join our party — without her mother. How lucky you saw her !" " Well ! Is it the Princess of Paphlagonia ?" " Oh, I forgot you were not in Washington last winter. That's Miss Benson ; just charming ; you'll see. Family came from Ohio somewhere. You'll see what they are — but Irene ! Yes, you needn't ask ; they've got money, made it honestly. Began at the bottom — as if they were in training for the presi- dency, you know — the mother hasn't got used to it as much as the father. You know how it is. But Irene has had every advantage — the best schools, mas- ters, foreign travel, everything. Poor girl ! I'm sor- ry for her. Sometimes I wish there wasn't any such Their Pihjrimafji'. 9 thiiio- as t'ducatioii in tliis eoiiiitr)', except furtlic oilii- eated. She iie\-er sluiws it ; but of course she must see wliat lier relatives are." The Hotel Ilygeia has this advantage, which is ap- jireciated, at least by the young ladies. The United States fi_)rt is close at hand, with its quota of young officers, who have the leisure in times of peace to pre- ]iare for war, domestic or foreign ; and there is a na- val station across the bay, with vessels that need fash- ionable inspection. Considering the acknowledged scarcity of young men at watering-places, it is the duty of a paternal government to ])lace its military and naval stations close to the fashionable resorts, so that the young women who are studying the german and other branches of the life of the period can have agreeable assistants. It is the charm of Fortress Monroe that its heroes are kept from ennui by the company assembled there, and that they can be of service to society. When Mrs. Cortlandt assembled her party on the steam - tug chartered by her for the excursion, the army was very well represented. With the excep- tion of the chaperons and a bronzed veteran, who was inclined to direct the conversation to his Indian campaigns in the Black Hills, the company was young, and of the age and temper in which everything seems fair in love and war, and one that gave Mr. King, if lie desired it, an opportunity of studying the girl of the period — the girl who impresses the foreigner with her extensive knowledge of life, her fearless freedom of manner, and about whom he is apt to make the mistake of supposing that this freedom has not per- AN EXCUESIOX. fectly well defined limits. It was a delightful day, such as often comes, even in Avinter, within the Capes of Virginia ; the sun was genial, the bay was smooth, with onh- a light breeze that kept the water sparkling brilliantly, and jitst enough tonic in the air to excite the spirits. The little tug, which was pretty well Tlii'tr PUgriinage. 11 paekc'il with tlie merry company, was swift, and danct'cl along in an exhilarating mannt'r. The bay, as everybody knows, is one of the most eommodious in the world, and would l)e one of the most lieaiitiful if it had hills to overlook it. There is, to \)v sure, a tran(|uil beauty iu its wooi rfoirc of the 5'oung ladies who handled them astonishiMl Ii-ene. The songs were of lo\e and summer seas, chansons in French, minor melodies in Spanish, plain declarations of affection in distinct English, flung abroad with classic abandon, and caught up by the chorus in biting strains that ])artook of the bounding, exhilarating motion of the little steamer. Wh}', liere is material, thought King, for a troupe of bacchantes, light-hearted leaders of a summer fes- tival. What charming girls, quick of wit, dashing in repartee, who can pick the strings, troll a song, and dance a brando ! 12 Their Pilgrimage. "It's like sailing over the Bay of Xaj.iles," Irene was saying to Mr. King, who had found a seat beside her in the little caliin ; " the guitar-strumming and the impassioned songs, only that always seems to me a manufactured gayetj-, an attempt to cheat the trav- eller into the belief that all life is a holiday. This is spontaneous." "Yes, and I suppose the ancient Roman gayety, of which the Neapolitan is an echo, was spontaneous once. I wonder if our society is getting to dance and frolic along like that of old at Baire." " Oh, Mr. King, this is an excursion. I assure you the American girl is a serious and practical person most of the time. You've been away so long that your standards are wrong. She's not nearly so know- ing as she seems to be." The boat was preparing to land at Newport Xews — a sand bank, with a railway terminus, a big eleva- tor, and a hotel. The party streamed along in laugh- ing and chatting groups, through the warehouse and over the tracks and the sandy hillocks to the hotel. On the way they captured a novel conveyance, a cart with an ox harnessed in the shafts, the property of an aged negro, whose white hair and variegated raiment proclaimed him an ancient Virginian, a survival of the wai'. The company chartered this estalilishment, and swarmed upon it till it looked like a Xeapolitan caUsso, and the procession might have been mistaken for a harvest-home — tjie harvest of beaut}' and fash- ion. The hotel was captured without a struggle on the part of the regular occupants, a dance extempor- ized in the dining-room, and before the magnitude of Their rihjrlmagc. 13 tuna the invasion was realized by the garrison, the danci feet and the laughing girls were away again, and the little boat Avas leaping along in the Elizabeth River towards the Portsmouth Navy-yard. It isn't a model war establishment this Portsmouth yard, l>ut it is a pleasant resort, with its stately har- raeks and open square and occasional trees. In noth- ing does the American woman better show her patri- otism than in her desire to inspect naval vessels and understand dry-docks under the guidance of naval officers. Besides some old war hulks at the station, there were a couple of training-ships getting ready for a cruise, and it made one proud of his country to see the interest shown by our party in everytliing on board of them, patiently listening to the explanation of the breech-loading guns, diving down into the be- tween-decks, cn-owded with the schoolboys, where it is impossible for a man to stand upright and difficult to avoid the stain of paint and tar, or swarming in the cabin, eager to know the mode of the officers' life at sea. So those are the little places where they sleep? and here is where they dine, and here is a library — a haji-hazard case of books in the saloon. It was in running her eyes over these that a young laily dis- covered that the novels of Zola were among the nau- tical works needed in the navigation of a ship of war. On the return — and the twenty miles seemed short enough — lunch was served, and was the occasion of a food deal of hilarity and innocent badinage. There were those who still sang, and insisted on sii>ping the lieel-taps of the morning gayety ; but was King mis- taken ill supposing that a little seriousness had stolen 1-i Their Pilgrimage. upon the party — a serious intention, iinmely, between one and another couple ? The wind had risen, for one thing, and the little boat was so tossed about by the vigorous waves that the skipper declared it would be imprudent to attempt to land on the Rip-Raps. Was it the thought that the day was (jver, and that underneath all chaff and hilarity there was the ques- tion of settling in life to be met some time, which subdued a little the high spirits, and ga-\'e an air of protection and of tenderness to a couple here and there? Consciously, perhaps, this entered into the thought of noVjody ; Viut still the old sloi-y will go on, and perhaps all the more rapidly under a mask of raillery and merriment. There Mas great bustling about, hiuiting np wraps and lost parasols and mislaid gloves, and a chorus of agreement on the delight of the day, upon going ashore, and Mrs. Cortlandt, who looked the youngest and most animated of the flock, was quite over- whelmed with thanks and congratulations upon the success of her excursion. "Yes, it was perfect ; you've given us all a great deal of jileasure, 3Irs. Cortlandt,"' I\Ir, King was say- ing, as he stood beside her, watching the exodus. Perhaps 3Irs. Cortlandt fancied his eyes were fol- lowing a particular figure, for she responded, "And how did you like her '?" "Like her — Miss Benson? "Why, I ilidn't see nuich of her. I thought she was very intelligent — seemed very ninch interested when Lieutenant Green was ex- plaining to her what made the drv-dock drv — but they were all that. Did you say her eyes were gray? Their Pil(jririiage. 15 I couldn't make out if they were not ratlicr blue, after all — large, chang-eable ^iort of eyes, long lashes ; eyes that look at you seriously and steadily, \\ Ithout the least bit of coquetry or worldliuess ; eyes express- ing simplicity and interest in what you are sayinc; — not in you, but in what you are saying. So few women know how to listen ; most women apjiear to be thinking of themselves and the effect they are jiro- ducing." Mrs. t'urtlandt laughed. "Ah; I see. And a little 'sadness' in them, wasn't there? Those are tlie most dangerous eyes. The sort that follow you, that you see in the dark at night after the gas is turned off." "I haven't the faculty of seeing things in the dark, Mrs. Cortlandt. Oh, there's the mother !" And the shrill voice of Mrs. Benson was heard, "We was get- ting uneasy about you. Pa says a storm's coming, and that you'd be sick as siek.'' The weather was changing. ]jut that evening the spacious hotel, luxurious, perfectlv warmed, and well lighted, crowded with an agreeable if not a lirilliant company — for j\[r. King noted the fact that none of the gentlemen dressed for dinner — seemed all the more pleasant for the contrast with the weather out- side. Thus housed, it was jileasant to hear the waves dashing against the breakwater. Just by chance, in the ballroom, Mr. King found himself seated by Mrs. Benson and a group of elderly ladies, who had the perfunctory air of liking the mild gayety of the place. To one of them Mr. King was presented, Mrs. Stimp- 6on — a stout woman with a broad red face and fish}- eyes, wearing an elaborate head-dress with purple 16 Their Pilgrimage. flowers, and attired as if slie were expecting to take a ]irize. Mrs. Stimpson was loftily condescending, and asked Mr. King if this was his first visit. She'd been coming here years and years ; never could get through the spring without a few weeks at the Hygeia. Mr. King saw a good many people at this hotel who seemed to regard it as a home. "I hope your daughter, Mrs. Benson, was not tired out with the rather long voyage to-day." " Not a mite. I guess she enjoyed it. She don't seem to enjoy most things. She's got everything heart can wish at home. I don't know how it is. I was tellin' pa, Mr. Benson, to-daj' that girls ain't what they used to be in my time. Takes more to satisfy 'em. Now my daughter, if I say it as shouldn't, Mr. King, there ain't a better appearin', nor smarter, nor more dutiful girl an3-where — well, I just couldn't live without her ; and she's had the best schools in the East and Europe ; done all Europe and Rome and Italy ; and, after all, somehow, she don't seem con- tented in Cyrusville — that's where we live in Ohio — one of the smartest places in the state ; grown right up to be a city since we was married. She never says anything, but I can see. And we haven't spared any- thing on our house. And society — there's a great deal more society than I ever had." Mr. King might have been astonished at this out- pouring if he had not observed that it is precisely in hotels and to entire strangers that some people are apt to talk with less reserve than to intimate friends. "I've no doubt," ho said, "you have a lovely home in Cyrusville." Their Pilgrimage. 17 " Well, I guess it's got all the improvements. Pa, Mr. Benson, said that bo didn't know of anything that had heen left out, and we had a man up from Cin- cinnati, who did all the furnishing befcji-e Irene came home." "Perhaps your daughter would have pjreferred to furnish it herself '?" " Mebbe so. She said it was splendid, but it looked like somebody else's house. She says the queerest things sometimes. I told Mr. Benson that I thought it would be a good thing to go away from home a little while and travel round. I've never been away much except in New York, where Mr. Benson has business a good deal. We've been in Washington this winter." "Are you going farther south?" "Yes; we calculate to go down to the New Or- leans Centennial. Pa wants to see the E.^position, and Irene wants to see what the South looks like, and so do I. I suppiose it's perfectly safe now, so long after the war ?" "Oh, I should say so." "That's what Mr. Benson says. He says it's all nonsense the talk about what the South '11 do now the Democrats are in. He says the South wants to make money, and wants the country prosperous as much as anybody'. Yes, we are going to take a reg- ular tour all summer round to the different places where people go. Irene calls it a pilgrimage to the holy 2>laces of America. Pa tliinks we'll get enough of it, and he's determined we shall have enough of it for once. I suppose we shall. I like to travel, IS Their PUgrimage. but I baven't seen any place better tlian Cyrusville yet." As Irene did not make ber appearance, Mr. King- tore bimself away from tbis interesting conversa- tion and strolled about tbe parlors, made engage- ments to take early coffee at tbe fort, to go to cburch witb Mrs. Cortlandt and ber friends, and afterwards to drive over to Hampton and see the copper and other colored schools, talked a little pol- itics over a late cigar, and then went to bed, rather curious to see if the eyes that Mrs. Cortlandt regard- ed as so dangerous would appear to biiu in the dark- ness. When be awoke, bis first faint impressions were that tbe Ilygeia had drifted out to sea, and then that a dense fog bad drifted in and envelo]ied it. But this illusion was speedily dispelled. The window- ledge was piled higli with snow. Snow filled the air, whirled about by a gale that was banging tbe win- dow-shutters and raging exaoth' like a Xorthern tem- pest. It swirled the snow about in Agaves and dark masses interspersed with rifts of liglit, dark here and luminous there. The Rip-Rap)s were lost to view. Out at sea black clouds bung in the horizon, beavv reinforcements for tbe attacking storm. The ground was heaped with the still fast-falling snow — ten inches deep be heard it said when he descended. The Bal- timore boat bad not arrived, and ut yon eainn.1t help the endeavor to read the mind of a person with A\hom vou are talking." " Oh, that is dilt'erent. That is really an encounter of wits, for you know that the hest part of a eir society is getting too sensitive and nervous, and inclined to make dan- gerous mental excursions'?" "I'm afraid I do not think much about such things," Irene replied, looking out of the window into the storm. "I'm content with a very simj)le faith, even if it is called ignorance." Mr. King was thinking, as he watched the clear, spirited profile iif the girl showTi against the wdiite tumult in the air, that he should like to belong to the party of ignorance himself, and he thought so long 22 Their Pilgrimage. about it that the subject dropped, and the conversa- tion fell into ordinary channels, and Mrs. Benson ap- peared. She thought they would move on as soon as the storm was over. Mr. King himself was going south in the morning, if travel were possible. When he said good-bye, Mrs. Benson expressed the pleasure his acquaintance had given them, and hoped they should see him in Cyrusville. Mr. King looked to see if this invitation was seconded in Irene's eyes; but they made no sign, although she gave him her hand frankly, and wished him a good journey. The next morning he crossed to I^orfolk, was trans- ported through the snow-covered streets on a sledge, and took his seat in the ears for the most monotonous ride in the country, that down the coast-line. When next Stanhope King saw Fortress Monroe it was in the first days of June. The summer which he had left in the interior of the Hygeia was now out- of-doors. The winter birds had gone north; the sum- mer birds had not yet come. It was the interregnum, for the Hygeia, like Venice, has two seasons, one for the inhabitants of colder climes, and the other for natives of the countrj-. Xo spot, thought our travel- ler, could be more lovely. Perhaps certain memories gave it a charm, not well defined, but still gracious. If the house had been empty, ^I'hich it Avas far from being, it would still have been peopled for him. Were they all such agreeable people whom he had seen there in March, or has one girl the power to throw a charm over a whole watering-place? At any rate, the place was full of delightful repose. There was move- Their I'iJ(jrunxi(je. 23 uient enougli upon the water to satisfy one's lazy longing for life, the waves lapped soothingly along the shore, and the broad bay, sparkling in the sun, was animated with boats, which all had a holiday air. Was it not enough to come down to breakfast and sit at the low, broad windows and wateh the shifting panorama? All abont the harbor shinted the wliite sails; at intervals a steamer was landing at the Avharf or backing away from it; on the wharf itself there was always a little bustle, but no noise, some pretence of business, and much actual transaction in the way of idle attitudinizing, the colored )nan in cast - off clothes, and the colored sister in sun-bonnet or tur- ban, lending themselves readily to the picturesque ; the scene changed every minute, the sail of a tiny lioat was hoisted or lowered under the windoAV, a dashing cutter with its Tiniformed crew was pulling off to the German man-of-war, a jiufHng little tug dragged along a line of barges in the distance, and on the horizon a fleet of coasters was working out be- tween the cajies to sea. In the 0])en window came the fresh morning breeze, and only the softened sounds of the life outside. The ladies came down in cool muslin dresses, and added the needed grace to the picture as they sat breakfasting by the window.s, their figures in silhouette against the blue water. No wonder our traveller lingered there a little ! Humanity called him, for one thing, to drive often with humanely disposed young ladies round the beau- tiful shore cur-\'e to visit the schools for various colors at Hampton. Then there was the evening prome- nading on the broad verandas and out upon the min- A DEFE^'DEa OF HIS COUKTKY. iature i^ier, or at sunset by the water-batteries of the olfl fort — such a peaceful old fortress as it is. All the morning there were "inspections" to be attended, and nowliere could there be seen a more aejreeable mingling of war and love than the spacious, tree- planted interior of the fort presented on such occa- Their Pilgrimage. 25 sions. The sbifting figures of the troops on ]>ara(lc; tlie martial and daring inanceuvres oi the regimental band; the gronps of ladies seated on benches under the trees, attended by gallants in uniform, momenta- rily off duty and full of information, and by gallants not in uniform and never off duty and desirous to learn; the ancient guns with French arms and Eng- lish arms, reminiscences of Yorktown, on one of which a pretty girl was ajit to be perched in the act of be- ing photographed — all this was enough to inspire any man to be a countryman and a lover. It is beautiful to see how fearless the gentle sex is in the presence of actual war ; the prettiest girls occupied the front and most exposed seats, and never flinched when the determined columns marched down on them with drums beating and colors flyiTig, nor showed much relief when they suddeidy wheeled and marched to another piart of the pai-ade in search of glory. And the officers' quarters in the casemates — what will not women endure to serve their country ! These quar- ters are mere tunnels under a dozen feet of eartli, with a door on the parade side and a casement win- dow on the outside — a damp cellar, said to be cool in the height of summer. The only excuse for such quarters is that the women and children will be com- ]>ai-atively safe in case the fortress is bombarded. The hotel and the fortress at this enchanting sea- son, to say nothing of other attractions, with laughing eves and slender figures, might well have detained Mr. Stanhope King, but he had determined upon a sort of roving summer among the resorts of fashion and pleasure. After a long sojourn aljroad, it seemed THE GOVEKSMENT WHAKF, FOETHESS MO:SROE. _.] becoming that he should know something of the float- ing life of his own country. His determination may have been strengthened by the confession of 3Irs. Benson that her family were intending an extensive summer tour. It gives a zest to pleasure to have even an indefinite object, and though the prosjject of meeting Irene again was not definite, it was neverthe- less alluring. There was something about her, he could not tell what, different from the women he had met in France. Indeed, he went so far as to make a general formula as to the impression the American women made on him at Fortress Monroe — tbey all appeared to be innocent. /■ _ ».Sii- -=^ _^s^—=--- CHAPTER II. "Of course you -will not go to Cape May till the season opens. Yon might as well go to a race-ti'aek the day there is no race." It was 3Irs. Cortlandt who was speaking, and the remonstrance was addressed to Mr. Stanhope King, and a yonng gentleman, Mr. Graham Forbes, who had just been presented to her as an artist, in the railway station at Philadelphia, that comfortable home of the tired and bewildered traveller. Mr. Forfies, with his fresh complexion, closelj' cropjied hair, and London clothes, did not look at all like the traditional artist, although the sharp eyes of Mrs. Cortlandt detected a small sketch-book peeping out of his side pocket. 2S Their Pilgrimage. "On the contrary, that is -^hy we ','■0,"' saiil 3Ir. King. "I've a fancy that I should lilce to open a season once myself." "Besides," added 3Ir. Forbes, " we want to see nat- ure unadorned. You know, 3Irs. C'ortlandt, how peo- ple sometimes spoil a place." "I'm not sure," answered the ladv, laughintr, "that people have not spoiled you two and you need a rest. Where else do you go'?" " Well, I thought," replied ^Mr. King, '' from what I heard, that Atlantic City might appear best with no- body there." "Oh, there's always some one there. You know, it is a winter resort now. And, by the way — But there's mv train, and the young ladies are beckoning to me." (Mrs. Cortlandt was never seen anywhere without a ptarty of young ladies.) "Yes, the Ben- sons passed through Washington the other dav from the South, and spoke of going to Atlantic City to tone up a little before the season, and perhaps you know that Mrs. Benson took a great fancy to you. Mr. Kino;. Good-bye, au rei'oir,''- and the lady was gone with her bevy of girls, struggling in the stream that poured towards one of the wicket-gates. "Atlantic City? Why, Stanhope, you don't think of going there also?" "I didn't think of it, but, hang it all, my dear fel- low, dutj- is duty. There are some places you must see in order to be well informed. Atlantic Citv is an important place; a great many of its inhabitants Spend their winters in Philadelphia." "And this Mrs. Benson?" Their Fllyrhaage. 29 " No, I'm not going down there to see Mrs. Benson." Expectancy was the word when our travellers stepped out of the car at Cape May station. Except for some people who seemed to liave business there, they were the only passengers. It Avas the nintli of June. E\'erything was ready — the sea, the sky, the delicious air, the long line of gray-colored coast, the omnibuses, the array of hotel tooters. As they stood waiting in irresolution a grave man of middle age and a disinterested manner sauntered np to the trav- ellers, and slipped into friendly relations witli them. It was impossible not to incline to a person so obliging and well stocked with local information. Yes, there were several good hotels open. It didn't make much difference ; there was one near at hand, not preten- tious, but probably as comfortable as any. People liked the tabic; last summer used to come there from other hotels to get a meal. He was going that way, and wonld walk along with them. He did, and con- versed must interestingly on the way. Our travellers felicitated themselves upon falling into such good hands, but when they reached the hotel designated it had such a gloomy and in fact boarding-house air that they hesitated, and thought they wotdd like to walk on a little farther and see the town befm-e set- tling. And their friend appeared to feel rather grieved about it, not for himself, but for them. He had, moreover, the expression of a fisherman who has lost a fish after he supposed it was securely li0(_>ked. But our young friends had been angled for in a good many waters, and they told the landlord, for it was the landlord, that while they had no doubt bis was 30 Their Pilgrimage. the best hotel in the place, they would like to look at some not so good. The one that attracted them, though they could not see in ^Yhat the attraction lay, Avas a tall building gay with fresh paint in many colors, some pretty window balconies, and a portico supported by high stripied columns that rose to the fourth story. They were fond of color, and were taken by six little geraniums planted in a circle amid the sand in front of the house, which were waiting for the season to open before they l>egan to grow. AYith hesitation they stepped upon the newly var- nished piazza and the newly varnished office floor, for every step left a footprint. The chairs, disjjosed in a long line on the piazza, waiting for guests, were also varnished, as the artist discovered when he sat in one of them and was held fast. It was all fresh and delightful. The landlord and the clerks had smiles as wide as the open doors; the waiters exhibited in their eagerness a good imitation of unselfish service. It was very pleasant to be alone in the house, and to be the first-fruits of such great expectations. The first man of the season is in such a difPerent position from the last. lie is like the King of Bavaria alone in his royal theatre. The ushers give him the best seat in the house, he hears the tuning of tlie instru- ments, the curtain is about to rise, and all for him. It is a very cheerful desolation, for it has a future, and everything quivers with the expectation of life and gayety. Whereas the last man is like one who stumbles out among the empty benches when the cur- tain has fallen and the play is done. X(.>thino- is go melancholy as the shabbiness of a watering-place at Thuir Pihjrhnage. 31 the end of the season, where is left only the echo of past gayety, the last guests are scurrying away like leaves before the cold, rising wind, the varnish has ■n'oni off, shutters are put up, booths are dismantled, the shows are packing up their tawdry ornaments, and the autumn lea\-es collect in the corners of the gaunt buildinos. Could this be the Cape May about which hung so many traditions of summer romance ? Where were those crowds of Southerners, with slaves and chariots, and the haughtiness of a caste civilization, and the belles from Baltimore and Philadelphia and Charles- ton and Richmond, whose smiles turned the heads of the last generation ? Had tliat gay society danced itself oft' into the sea, and left not even a phantom of itself behind? As he sat upon the veranda, King could not rid himself of the im]ircssion that this must be a mocking dream, this appearance of emptiness and solitude. Why, j-es, he was certainly in a delu- sion, at least in a re\erie. The ])lace was alive. An omnilius drove to the door (tlniugh no sound of wheels was heard); the waiters rushed out, a fat man de- scended, a little girl was lifted down, a pretty womar^ jumped from the steps with that little extra bound on the ground which all women confessedly under forty always give when they alight from a vehicle, a large woman lowered herself cautiously out, with an anx- ious look, and a file of tnen stooped and emerged, poking their umbrellas and canes in each otjier's backs. Mr. King plainly saw the whole party hurry into the ofiice and register their names, and saw the clerk repeatedly touch a bell and throw back his head 82 Their Pilgrimage. and extend his hand to a servant. Curious to see who the arrivals Tvere, he -went to the register. Xo names ■svere written tliere. But there were other car- riages at the door, there was a pile of trunks on the veranda, which lie nearly stumbled over, although his foot struck nothing, and the chairs were full, and jjeo- ple were strolling up and down the piazza. He noticed jiartieularly one couple promenading — a slender bru- nette, with a brilliant complexion; large dark eyes that made constant play — could it be the belle of Ma- con? — and a gentleman of thirty-five, in black frock- coat, unbuttoned, with a wide - brimmed soft hat — clothes not quite the latest style — who had a good deal of manner, and walked apart fr<;im the ^'ounc lady, bending towards her with an air of devotion. Mr. King stood one side and watched the endless piro- cession up and down, up and down, the strollers, the mincers, the languid, the nervous stepjjers; noted the eye-shots, the flashing or the languishing look that kills, and never can lie called to account for the mis- chief it does; but not a sound did he hear of the rep- artee and the laughter. The place certainly was thronged. The avenue in front was crowded with vehicles of all sorts; there were groups strollino- on the broad beach — children with their tiny pails and shovels digging pits close to the advancing tide, nurs- ery-maids in fast colors, boys in knickerbockers racing on the beach, people lying on the sand, resolute walk- ers, whose figures loomed tall in the evening lio-ht, do- ing their constitutional. People were passing to and fro on the long iron pier that spider-legged itself out into the sea; the two rooms midway were filled with 34 Thtir PUyrirnage. sitters taking the evening breeze; and tlie large ball and music room at the end, with its spacious outside jiromenade — yes, there were dancers there, and the band was playing. Mr. King could see the fiddlers draw their bows, and the corneters lift up their horns and get red iri the face, and the lean man slide his trombone, and the drummer flourish his sticks, but not a note of music reached him. It might have been a performance of ghosts for all the effect at this dis- tance. 3Ir. King remarked ttpon this dumb-show to a gentleman in a blue coat and white vest and gray hat, leaning against a column near him. The gentleman made no response. It was most singular. 3Ir. King stepped back to be out of the way of some children racing down the piazza, and, half stumbling, sat down in the lap of a dowager — no, not quite; the chair was empty, and he sat down in the fresh varnish, to which his clothes stuck fast. Was this a delusion ? Xo. The tables were filled in the dining-room, the waiters were scurrying abotit, there were ladies on the balconies looking dreamily down upon the animated scene be- low; all the movements of gayety and hilaritv in the height of a season. 3Ir. King approached a o-roup who were standing waiting for a carriage, but thev did not see him, and did not respond to his trumped- up question about the next train. Were these, then, shadows, or was he a spirit himself ? Were these empty omnibuses and carriages that discharged o-host- ly passengers ? And all this promenading and fiirting and languishing and love-making, would it come to nothing — nothing more than usual? There was a charm aliout it all — the movement, the color, the gray Their PUfjriinage. 35 sand, anil tlie rosy blusli on the sea — a lovely place, an enchanted place. Were these throngs the guests that were to come, or those that had lieen here in other seasons? Why could not the former "materialize" as well as the latter? Is it not as easy to make noth- ing out of what never yet existed as out i:>f what has ceased to exist? The landlord, hy faith, sees all this array which is prefigured so strangely to Mr. King; and his comely young wife sees it and is ready for it; and the fat son at the supper talde — a living example of the good eating to be had here — is serene, and has the air of being polite and knowing to a houseful. This scrap of a child, with the aplcnnb of a man of fifty, wise beyond his fatness, imparts information to the travellers about the wine, speaks to the waiter with quiet authority, and makes these mature men feel like boys before the gravity of f>ur perfect flower of American youth who has known no childhood. This boy at least is no phantom; the landlord is real, and the waiters, and the food they bring. " I suppose," said Mr. King to his friend, " that we are opening the season. Did you see anything out- doors ?" "Yes; a horseshoe-crab about a mile below here on the smooth sand, with a long dotted trail behind him, a couple of girls in a j^ony-cart who nearly drove over me, and a tall young lady with a red parasol, accom- panied by a big black-and-white dog, walking rapidly, close to the edge of the sea, towards the simset. It's just lovely, the silvery sweep of coast in this light." " It seems a refined sort of place in its outlines, and quietly respectable. They tell me here that they don't 36 Their Pilgrimage. want the excursion crowds that overrun Athmtic City, but an Atlantic City man, whom I met at the pier, said that Cape May used to be the boss, but that At- lantic City had got the bulge on it now — had thou- sands to the hundreds here. To get the bulge seems a desirable thing in America, and I think we'd better see what a place is like that is popular, whether fash- ion recognizes it or not." The place lost nothing in the morning light, and it was a sparkling morning with a fresh breeze. Xature, with its love of simple, sweeping lines, and its feeling for atmosjiheric efEect, has done everything for the place, and bad taste has not quite spoiled it. There is a sloping, shallow beach, very broad, of fine, hard sand, excellent for driving or for walking, extending unbroken three miles down to Cape 3Iay Point, which has hotels and cottages of its own, and life-saving and signal stations. Off to the west frcmi this point is the long sand line to Cape Henlopen, fourteen miles av\-ay, and the Delaware shore. At Cape Mav Point there is a little village of painted wood houses, mostly cottages to let, and a permanent population of a few hundred inhaliitants. From the pier one sees a mile and a half of hotels and cottages, fronting south, all flaming, tasteless, carpenter's architecture, gay with paint. The sea expanse is magnificent, and the sweep of beach is fortunately unencumbered, and vulo-arized by no liath-houses or show shanties. The bath-houses are in front of the hotels and in their enclosures; then come the broad drive, and the sand beach, and the sea. The line is broken below l)y the lighthouse and a point of land, whereon stands the elejihant. This 27uir Pihjriina(ji. 37 elopliaiit is iidt iniliiii'iKnis, and lie stands alinie in tlio sand, a wooden sliani -witliont an explanation. Why tlie liotel-lceepev's niind alont^' tlie eoast rei;ards tliis grotesqne stvneture as a snmnier altvaetion it is difH- onlt to see. But AvlK'n one resort liad liim, he l)ecanie a neeessitv e\ er^wlieve. l^Iie traveUers walki'd (h>\vn to tliis nmnster, elinilied tlie stairs in mie ot' his leL;-s, explored the rooms, looked out from the saddle, and pondered on the jirohleiii. This Ijeast was uniinished within and unpaiuted without, and already falliui;- into deeaA". ^Vii elephant on the desert, froiitini;- the Atlan- tie C)eean, had, after all, a pieturesipie aspeet, and all the more so beeause lie was a deserted ruin. The elephant was, however, no emptier than the eottasi'es ahout whieli our friends strolled, lint the cottages -were all ready, the rows of new ehairs stood on tlie fresh juazzas, the windows were iindtinody open, the pathetic little jiatehes of flo^\-ers in front tried hard to look festi\-e in the dry sands, and the stout landladies in their roeking-ehairs ealmly knitted and endea\ iired to appear as if the}' expected nohody, hut had almost a houseful. Yes, the place was uiideniahly attractive, "idle sea had the hlue of Nice ; why must we always go to the Mediterranean for an aqua >/>ar/i>a, for poetic lines, for delicate shades? What charming gradatii)ns had this picture — gray sand, blue waves, a line of ^\hite sails against the pale blue sky ! By the i>ier railing is a bevv of little girls grouped about an ancient col- ored man, the Aery ideal old Uncle Xed, in ragged, baggv, and disreputable clothes, lazy good-nature ooz- ino- out of every pore of him, kneeling by a telescope 38 Their FiJ.g, -image. pointed to a bunch of white sails on the horizon; a dainty little maiden, in a stiff -n-hite skirt and golden hair, leans against him and tiptoes up to the object- glass, shutting first one eve and then the other, and making nothing out of it all. " Why, ov co'se you can't see nuffin, honey," said Uncle Xed, taking a peep, " wid the 'scope p'inted up in the sky." In order to pass from C'aj)e May to Atlantic City one takes a long circuit by rail through the Jersey sands. Jersey is a yery prolific state, but the raihvay trayeller by this route is excellently prepared for At- lantic City, for he sees little but sand, stunted pines, scrub oaks, small frame houses, sometimes trying to hide in the clumps of scrub oaks, and the yillages are just collections of the same small frame houses hope- lessly decorated yith scroll - Trork and obtrusiyely painted, standing in lines on sandy streets, adorned ■\yith lean shade-trees. The handsome Jersey people -«'ere not trayelling that day — the t^yo friends had a theory about the relation of a sandy soil to female beauty — and yhen the artist got out his pencil to catch the types of the country, he was well rewarded. There were the fat old women in holiday market cos- tumes, strong-featured, positiye, who shook their heads at each other and nodded violently and incessantly, and all talked at once; the old men in rusty suits, thin, with a deprecatory manner, as if they had heard that clatter for fifty years, and perky, sharp-faced girls in yegetable hats, all long-nosed and thin-lipped. And though the day was cool, mosquitoes had the bad taste to invade the train. At the junction, a small collec- tion of wooden shanties, where the travellers waited UKCLE NED ADJUSTING THE TELESCOPE. 4:0 Their J-'ilyrimage. an hour, they heard much of the glories of Atlantic City from the postmistress, who was waiting for an excursion some time to go there (the passion for ex- cursions seems to he a growing one), and they made the acquaintance of a cow tied in the room next the ticket-office, probably also waiting for a passage to the city by the sea. And a city it is. If many houses, endless avenues, -sand, paint, make a city, the artist confesseil that this was one. Everything is on a large scale. It covers a large territory, the streets run at right angles, the avenues to the ocean take the names of the states. If the town had been made to order and sawed out by one man, it could not be more Ijeautifully regular and more satisfactorily monotonous. There is nothing about it to give the most commonplace mind in the world a throb of disturliance. The hotels, the cheap shops, the cottages, are all of wood, and, with three or four exceptions in the thousands, they are all practi- cally alike, all ornamented with scroll-work, as if cut out by the jig-saw, all vividly painted, all appealino- to a primitive taste just awakening to the appreciation of the gaudy chromo and the illuminated and consol- ing household motto. 3Iost of the hotels are in the town, at consideralde distance from the ocean, and the majestic old sea, which can be monotonous but never vulgar, is barricaded friim the town br live or six miles of stark-naked plank walk, rows on rows of bath closets, leagues of flimsy carpentry-work, in the wav of cheap-John shops, tin-type booths, peep-shows, o;o- rounds, shooting-galleries, pop-beer and cisj-ar shops restaurants, barber shops, photograph galleries, sum- JERSEY TYPES. 42 Their PUgrirnage. mer theatres. Sometimes tlie plank Tvalk runs for a mile or two, on its piles, between rows of these shops ami booths, and again it drops off down by the waves. Here and there is a gayly-painted wooden canopy by the shore, with chairs where idlers can sit and watch the frolicking in the water, or a space railed off, where the select of the hotels lie or lounge in the sand under red umbrellas. The calculating mind wonders how many million feet of lumber there are in this unpict- urescjue liarricade, and what gigantic forests have fallen to make this timber front to the sea. But there is one thing man cannot do. He has made this show to .suit himself, he has jjushed out several iron piers into the sea, and erected, of course, a skating rink on the end of one of them. But the sea itself, untamed, restless, shining, dancing, raging, rolls in from the southward, tossing the white sails on its vast expanse, green, blue, leaden, white-capped, many-colored, never two minutes the same, sounding with its eternal voice I know not ^^ hat reljuke to man. When Mr. King wrote his and his friend's name in the book at the 3Iansion House, he had the curiosity to turn over the leaves, and it was not ^\ itli much sur- jn-ise that he read there the names of A. .J. Benson, w-ife, and daughter, Cyrusville, Ohio. " Oh, I see 1" said the artist; " you came down here to see Mr. Benson!" That gentleman was presently discovered tilted back in a cliair on the piazza, gazing vacantlv into the vacant street with that air of endurance that fathers of families put on at such resorts. But he brightened up M-hen Mr. King made himself known. Their Pihjrimarjc. 43 ''Fin rio'lit glad to sec.' you, sir. And my \vil\' and daughter will Ik". I was saying to luy ^^•ifo yester- day that I couldn't stand this sort of thing much longer." " You don't find it lively?" " Well, the livelier it is the less I shall like it, I reckon. The town is well enciugh. It's one of the smartest |ilaccs on the coast. I should like to have (.>\vned the ground and sold out and retii'ed. This sand is all gold. They say thejr sell the lots hy the bushel and count every sand. You can see what it is, hoarils and jiaint and sand. Fine houses too; miles of them." " jVnd what (hj you do?" "Oh, they say there's plenty to do. Yo>i can I'ide around in the sand; you can wade in it if you wxwi to, and go down to the beach and walk uji and down the plank walk — walk uj> and down — walk uji and down. They like it. You can't bathe yet withoiit getting pneumonia. They have gone there now. Irene goes because she says she can't stand the gay- ety of the parlor." From the parlor came the sound of music. A yip in the country, when they are set up with other shells on the what-not in the corner! These shells always used to remind me of missionaries and the cause of the heathen; but when I see them now I shall tliiidc of Atlantic City." " But the representatiye things here," interrupted IiTue, " are the photographs, the tintypes. To see them, is just as good as staying here to see the ]ieople when they come." "Yes," responded Mr. King, "I think art cannot go much further in this direction." If there were not miles of these show-cases of tin- types, there were at least acres of them. Occasionally an instantaneous photograph gaye a liyely picture of the beach when the water was full of bathers — men, women, children, in tlie most extraordiTuiry costumes for reyealing or deforming the human figure — all toss- 52 Their Pilgrimage. ing about in tlie surf. But most of the pictures were takeTi on dry land, of sing-le persons, couples, and groups in tlieir bathing suits. Perhaps such an extraordinary collection of humanity cannot he seen elsewhere in the world, such a uniformity of one depressing type re- duced to its last analysis by the sea-toilet. Sometimes it was a young man and a maiden, handed down to posterity in dresses that would have caused their arrest in the street, sentimentally reclining on a canvas rock. Again it was a maiden with flowing hair, raised hands claspjed, eyes tipturned, on top of a crag, at the base of which the waves were breaking in foam. Or it was the same stalwart maiden, or another as good, in a boat which stood on end, pulling through the surf with one oar, and dragging a drowning man (in a bathing suit also) into the boat with her free hand. The legend was, " Saved." There never was such heroism exhibited by young women before, with such raiment, as was shown in these rare works of art. As they walked back to the hotel through a sandv avenue lined with jig-saw architecture. Miss Benson pointed out to them some things that she said had touched her a good deal. In the jiatches of sand fie- fore each house there was generally an oblong little mound set about with a rim of stones, or, when some- thing more artistic could be afforded, with shells. On each of these little graves was a flower, a sickly gera- nium, or a humble marigold, or some other floral token of affection. Mr. Forbes said he never was at a waterinQ--place before where they buried the summer lioarders in the front yard. Mrs. Benson didn't like joking on such Their Pihjnmage. 53 subjects, and ]N[r. Kino- turned the direction of the con- versation l)y remarking that these seeming triHes were really of much account in these days, and he took from his jiocket a copy of the city newspaper. Tin; Suinnmr tica-Soiig, and read some of the leading items; "S., our eye is on yon." "The Slopers have come to their cottage on Q Street, and come to stay.'' " ^Ir. E. P. Korum has painted his front steps." " ]\[r. DiffVn- dorfer's marigold is on the Idow." ^Vml so on, and so on. This was prdlialdy tlie marigold mentioned that they wei'e looking at. The most vivid impression, iKjAve^er, made iqtoii the visitor in this walk was that of paint. It >eemed un- real that there could lie so much jiaint in the ^\'(_irld and so many swearing colors. ISut it ceased to lie a dream, and they were taken hack into the hanl, jirae- tical W(.irld, when, as they turned the corner, Irene pointed out her fa\-orite sign: Slhis Lapliaiii, miiierdl ptiint. JSraiirli Office. The artist said, a conjile of days after this morning, that he had enough of it. " Of course," he added, " it is a great pleasure to me to sit and talk with Mrs. I!en- son, Avhile you and that pretty girl walk up and down the piazza all the evening; hut I'm easily satisfied, and two evenings did for me." So that much as ^Ir. King was charmed with Atlantic City, and much as he regretted not awaiting the ar- rival of the originals of the tintyjies, he gave in to the restlessness of the artist for other scenes; Imt not he- fore he had impressed Mrs. Benson with a notion of the delitfhts of Newport in Jnlv. CHAPTER III. view of the Catskills from a cer- tain lio^jjitable mansion on the east side of the Hudson is bet- ter than any view from those delectable hills. The artist said so one morning late in June, and Mr. King agreed with him, as a matter of fact, but would have no philosophiz- ing aV)0ut it, as that anticipa- tion is always better than realization ; and when Mr. Forbes went on to say that climljing a nnjuntain was a good deal like marriage — the world was likelv to look a little flat once that cerulean height was attained — Mr. King only remarked that that was a low view to take of the subject, but he would confess that it was unrea- sonable to expect that any rational object couLl fulfil, or even approach, the promise held out bv such an ex- quisite prospect as that before them. The friends were standing where the Catskill hills lay before them in echelon towards the river, the ridges lapping over each other and receding in the distance, a gradation of lines most artistically ilrawn, still further refined by shades of violet, which always have the ef- Theii' Pihjrimage. 55 feet upon the eontemplative mind of either relio'ioiis exaltation or the kindling- of a sentiment whieli is in the young; akin to the emotion of love. While tlie artist was makini;- some menmranda of these outlines, and 3Ir. King was di-awing I know not what auguries of hope from these purple lieig'hts, a young lady seated upon a roek nearliy — a young lady just stepping over the bonier-line of womanhood — had her e^"es als(.i fixed upon those dreamy distances, with that look we all know so well, lietraying that shy expectancy (d' life which is nuconfessed, that tendeiU'V to maidenly reverie which it were cruel to interpret literally. At the mo- ment she is more interesting than the Catskills — the In-own hair, the large eyes unconscious of anything but the most natural emotion, the shajielv 'waist just lieginning to respond to the call of the future — it is a pity that we shall never see her again, and that she has nothing ^\hatever to do Avith our journey. She also will have her romance; fate will meet her in the way some day, and set her ]iiire heart wildly beating, and she will know- ^liat those purple distances mean. Happiness, tragedy, anguish — who can tell what is in store for herV I cannot but feel profound sadin'ss at meeting her in this casual way and never seeing her again. Who says that the world is not full of romance and pathos and regret as we go our daily way in it ? You meet her at a railway station; there is the flutter of a veil, the gleam of a scarlet bird, the lifting of a pair of eyes — she is gone; she is entering a drawing- room, and stops a moment and turns away: sh.e is lo(_>k- ing from a window as you pass — it is only a glance out cf eternity; she stands for a second upon a rock 56 Their Pilgrimage. looking M_-award; she passes you at the church door — is that all? It is discovered that instantaneous photo- graplis can he taken. Tliey are taken all the time; some of them are never developed, hut I suppose these impressions are all there on the sensitive plate, and that the plate is permanently affected by the impres- sions. The pity of it is that the world is so full of these undeveloped knowledges of people worth know- ing and friendships worth making. The comfort of leaving some things to the imagina- tion was impressed upon our travellers when they left the narrow-gauge railway at the mountain station, and identified themselves with other tourists by entering a two-horse wagon to be dragged wearily up the hill through the woods. The ascent would be more tolera- ble if any vistas were cut in the forest to give views by the way; as it was, the monotony of the pull up- ward was only relieved by the society of the passen- gers. There were two bright little girls off for a holi- day with their AVestern uncle, a big, good-natured man with a diamond breast-] 'in. anil his volulile son, a lad about the age of his little cousins, whom he con- stantly jiestered liy his rude and dominating behavior. The boy was a product which it is the despair of all Europe to produce, and our travellers had great delis'ht in him as an epitome of American "smartness." He led all the conversation, had confiilent ojiinions about everyllnng, easily ])Ut down his deferential papa, and pleased the other passengers liy his self-sufficient, know- it-all air. To a boy who had travelled in California and seen the Alps it was not to be expected that this humble mountain could affurd much entertainment, EIP VAN WINKLE. and he did not attempt to conceal liis contempt for it. When the stage reached the Rip Van "Wiidvle llonse, half-^vay, the shy schoolgirls were for indulging a lit- tle sentiment over the old legend, but the boy, who concealed Ids ignorance of the Irving romance until his cousins had prattled the outlines of it, was not to 58 Their Pilgrimage. be taken in by any such chaff, and thoufrh he was a little staggered by Rip's own cottage, and by the sight of the cave above it which is labelled as the very spot where the vagabond took his long nap, he attempted to bully the attendant and drink-mixer in the hut, and openly flaunted his incredulity until the bar-tender showed him a long bunch of Rip's hair, which hung like a scalp on a nail, and the rusty barrel and stock of the musket. The cabin is, indeed, full of old guns, pistols, locks of hair, buttons, cartridge-lioxes. bullets, knives, and other undoubted relics of Rip and the Revolution. This cabin, with its facilities for slaking thirst on a hot day, which Rip would have appreciated, over a hundred years old according to information to be obtained on the sjjot, is really of unknown antiquity, the old boards and timber of which it is constructed having been brought down from the 3Iountain House some forty years ago. The old 3Iountain House, standing ujjon its ledge of rock, from which one looks dijwn uyion a map of a con- siderable portion of Xew York and New England, with the lake in the rear, and heights on each side that offer charming walks to those who have in contemplation views of nature or of matrimony, has somewliat lost its importance since the vast Catskill region has come to the knowledge of the world. A generation ago it was the centre of attraction, and it was understood that going to the Catskills was going there. Genera- tions of searchers after immortality have chiselled their names in the rock platform, and the one who sits there now falls to musing on the vanity of human nature and the transitoriness of fashion. Xow Xew York has llieir Pihjrlmai'jc. 59 iouiid that it lias very edued, walked a mile over the rocks to the Kaaterskill House, and took up their abode there to watch the 0[iening of the season. Naturally they expected some difficulty in transfering their two trunks round hj the road, where there had been nothing but a wil- derness forty years ago; but their change of base was facilitated by the obliging hotel-keeper in the most friendly manner, and when he insisted on charging only four dollars for moving the trunks, the two friends said that, considering the wear and tear of the mountain involved, they did not see how he could afford to do it for such a sum, and they went away, as they said, well pleased. It happened to be at the Kaaterskill House — it might have been at the Grand, or the Overlook — that the young gentlemen in search of information saw THE mtlDE KI!OM KANKAZOO. 62 Their Pilgrimage. the Catskill season get under way. The phase of American life is much the same at all these great car- avansaries. It seems to the writer, who has the great-' est admiration for the military genius that can feed and fight an army in the field, that not enough ac- count is made of the greater genius that can organize and carry on a great American hotel, with a thousand or fifteen hundred guests, in a short, sharp, and deci- sive campaign of two months, at the end of which the substantial fruits of victory are in the hands of the landlord, and the guests are allowed to depart with only their personal baggage and side-arms, but so well pleased that they are inclined to renew the con- test next year. This is a triumph of mind o^■er mind. It is not merely the organization and the management of the army under the immediate command of the landlord, the accumulation and distribution of sup- plies upon this mountain-top, in the uncertainty wheth- er the garrison on a given day will be one hundred or one thousand, uc't merely the lodsfing, rationing, and amusing of this shifting host, but the satisfying of as many whims and prejudices as there are people who leave home on piurpose to grumble and enjoy themselves in the exercise of a criticism they dare not indulge in their own houses. Our friends had an op- portunity of seeing the machinery set in motion in one of these great establishments. Here was a vast bal- loon structure, founded on a rock, but built in the air, and anchored with cables, with towers and a high-pil- lared veranda, capable, with its annex, of lodging fif- teen hundred people. The army of waiters and cham- ber-maids, of bellboys and scullions and porters and Tlieir P'dijrlmcKje. 63 laniidry-folk, was arriving; tlie stalwart scrubbers were at wdrk, the store-rooms were till!;tl, tlie l)ig kitelien slione with its burnished copiiers, ami an ar- ray of white-capped and ajiroiied cooks stood in line under their cltef; the telegi'aph ojierator was waiting at her desk, the drug clerk was arranging his bottles, the neuspa])er stand was furnished, the jiost-ofiice was open for letters. It needed but the arrival of a guest to set the nuiehinery in motion. And as soon as the guest came the band wouhl be there to launch him into the maddening gayetv of the season. It woidd welcome his arri\al in triumphant strains; it would pursue him at dinner, and drown his conversation; it will fill his siesta with martial dreams, and it woidd seize his legs in the evening, and entreat liim to cajier in the parlor. Everything was ready. And this was what happened. It was the evening of the opening dav. The train wagons might be expected any nn;i- ment. The electric lights were blazing. All the clerks stood expectant, the porters were by the door, the trim, uniformed bellboys were all in waiting line, the register clerk stood fingering the leaves of the reg- ister with a gracious air. A noise is heard outside, the big door opens, there is a rush forward, and four peoj>le flock in — a man in a linen duster, a stout wom- an, a lad of ten, a smartly dressed young lady, and a dog. Movement, welcome, ringing of bells, tramping of feet — the whole machinery has started. It was ad- justed to crack an egg-shell or smash an iron-bound trunk. The few drops presaged a shower. The next day there were a hundred on the register; the day af- ter, two hundred; and the day following, an excursion. 64 Their Plhjriuiage. "With iiicrcasi7ig arrivals opportunity ■sras offered for the study of character. Away from his occupation, away from the cares of tlie househohl and the de- mands of society, what is tlie self -sustaining- capacity of the ordinary American man and woman ? It was interesting to note the enthusiasm of the first arrival, the delight in the view — Round Top, the deep gorges, the charming vista of the lowlands, a world and wil- derness of lieanty; the inspiration of the air. the alert- ness to explore in all directions, to see the lake, the falls, the mountain paths. But is a mountain sooner foun to the retail dealer, although it is niideniahle that a person seems tem))0i'arily to ehanice his nature ■when he heeomes part of an excursion; whether it is from the elatiim at the purchase of a day of gavety 1)elo\v the market price, or the escape from )iersoiial responsiliilitv uueariiio-, self-pos- sessed ill inauiiev, seiisil)le — wIki iiiailc ready and inci- sive ecinuneiits, and seemed te better fed, and to have more elevating recreations — something to educate their taste." " I've been educating the taste of one excursionist this morning, a good-faced welieve ? I s'pose I can go round and look?' 'Certainly.' And the old fellow tiptoed round the parlor, peering; at all the pictures in a confused state of mind, and with a guilty look of enjoyment. It seems incredil^le that a person should attain his age with such freshness of mind. But I think he is the only one of the party who even looked at the paintings." "I think it's just pathetic," said Miss Lamont. " Don't vou, Mr. Forbes ?" TJicir PihjriiiKujt. 73 "N(i; I tliiiik it's ene<»u-ai;-iiiL;-. It's a sii^-ii oi' an art ajiiu-fciatidn in this country. 'I'liat man will know a [laintiiiL;- ni'Xt time lie sees mie, and then he won't rest till he has l]iini;-ht a chrciinii, and sd he will go on."' "And if he li\'es lonij enongh, he will 1)U\' one of ^Ir. Forlies's ])aintinys." "lint not the (_>ne that jMiss Lamurne\'. All that Mr. King saiil, after ajiparent deeji cogitation, was, "I suppose if it were here it would have to he in a travelling-dress," which the women thought frivolo\is. Yet it was undeniahle that the artist and ^Marion had a common taste for hunting out jiicturescpie places in the wood paths, among the rocks, and on the edges tif ]ireeipices, and they dragged the rest of the party many a mile through wildernesses of beauty. Sketch- ing was the object of all these expeditions, but it always happened — there seemed a fatality in it — that when- THE AKTIST S FAVOEITE OCCrPATIOX. ever tliey halted anywhere for a rest or a view, the Lament girl vras sure to take an artistic pose, "niiicli the artist couldn't resist, and his whole occupation seemed to be drawing her, with the Catskills for a background. " There," he would say, "star just as Tou are: yes, leaning a little so" — it was wonderful how the lithe figure adapted itself to any background — " and turn your head this way, looking at me." The artist began to draw, and every time he gave a quick glance upwards from his book, there were the wistful Their PilgrinuKji. 75 face and tliosi/ eyes. "C'dnfouiid it I 1 lien' vour par- don — the lii^lit. Will \o\\ please turn your eyes a lit- tle c>iT, that way — so." There was no reason -\\liv the artist shiuild Vie nervous, the face «as perleetly demure; hut the faet is that art will have only one unstress. So the drawing' limped on from day to day, and the excursions became a matter of course. Sometimes the partv drove, extending their explorations miles among the hills, exhilarated by the sparkling air, excited \)j the succession of lovely changing prospects, bestowing their compassion upon the summer boarders in the smartly painted boarding-houses, and comparing the other big hotels with then' own. They couldn't help looking down on the summer boarders, any more than cottagers at other places can help a feeling of superi- ority to people in hotels. It is a natural desire to make an aristocratic line somewhere. Of course they saw the Kaaterskill Falls, and bought twenty-five cents' worth of water to pour over them, and they came A'cry near seeing the Haines Falls, but were a little too late. "Have the falls been taken in to-day?" asked Marion, seriously. "I'm real sorry, miss," said the projirietor, "but there's just been a party here and taken the water. But you can go down and look if you want to, and it -^von't cost 3'on a cent." They went down, and saw where the falls ought to be. The artist said it was a sort of dry-plate process, to be developed in the miml afterwards; 3Ir. King likened it to a dry smoke without lighting the cigar; and the doctor said it certainly had the sanitary ad- i D Their Pihjrhnarje. vantage of not Ijeing damp. The i)arty even penetrated the Platerskill Cove, and were -n-ell rewarded by its exceeding beauty, as is every one who goes there. There are sketches of all these lovely places in a certain artist's book, all looking, hijwever, very much alike, and consisting principal- Iv of a graceful fig- ure in a great variety of un- s t u d i c d a 1 1 i- tudes. " Isn't this a ^ nervous sort of "^ a place ?" the artist asked his friend, as they sat in his cham- Vier overlooking the world. " Perhaps it is. I have a fancy that some people are born to enjoy the valley, and some the mountains." " I think it makes a person nervous to live on a high place. This feeling of constant elevation tires one; T^- W*^l«"f*^**^^l : 7 *.3ff"^!i K \ THE ASCENT TO KA.\TERSKILL FALLS. Their Pihji'uiuujc. 77 it gives a fellow no sueli sense of bodily reiioso as he lias in a valley. And the wind, it's cimstantly iia^,'- uint;-, rattlini;- the wimlows ami liaiiginL;- the iloors. I can't eseajic the unrest of it." The artist was turn- ing the leaves and conteni])lating the ]Mi\ei-tv of his sketch-liook. "The faet is, I get better suhjeets on the sea-shore." "Prohahly tlu' sea would suit us heltcr. I!v tlie way, did I tell you that !lMiss Lanumt's uncle I'auie last night from lliclnuoud ? Mr. De Long, uncle on the mother's si take his niece to Xew- ]iort next ^\'eek. Has Miss Lamout said anything about going there?'' " Well, she did mention it the other day." The house was filling up, and. King thouolit, losing its family aspect. lie had taken quite a liking for the society of the pretty invalid girl, and was fond of sitting by lu'r, seeing tlu' delicate color conie back to her cheeks, and listening to her shrewd little society comments, lie thought she took ])leasure in having him ]Mish her wheel-chair \\\> and down the piaxza — at least she rewarded him by grateful looks, and compli- menteil him by asking his advice about reading and about beinn' useful to others. Like most young girls whose career of gayety is arrested as hers was, she felt an inclination ti.i corPETITION OF DUDES AXD ELDERLY WIDOWERS AND BACUELOES TO WAIT ( iX HEK. " ful to see the eagerness of sacrifice exhilfiteil by these vounc fellows to wheel her down the lontr corridor to her chamber. After all, it is a kindly, unselfish world, full of tenderness for women, and especially for inva- lid women who are pretty. There was all day long a competition of dudes and elderly widowers and bache- lors to wait on her. One thought she needed a little Their I'iI(jfliniJijc. 79 more wlieoling; auotlier volunteered to brino- her a glass of water; there was al\\ays some one to jiiek uj) her fan, to reeover her hanut before the\' went the artist must make one more trial at a sketch — must get the li:)cal color. It -was a large party that went one morning to see it done under the famous leilge of rocks on the Reil Path. It is a fascinating spot, with its coolness, sense of seclusion, nnnsses, «ild flowers, and ferns. In a small grotto under the frowning wall of the precipice is said to he a spring, liut it is difficult to fiml, and lovers need to go a great manv times iu search of it. People not in love can sometimes find a dam]i place in the sand. The question was where Miss Lamont should pose. Should she nestle under tlie great ledge, or sit on a ju'ojecting rock with her hgure against the skv'? The artist cul)lic eye, cross and tousled and disarranm'd, iXM^uires eithei' indift'erence or courage. It is leasure. The artist has whipped out his sketch-book to take some outlines of the view, and his comrade, looking that wav, thinks this group a pleasing part of the scene, and notes how the salt, dewy morning air has brought the color into the sensitive face of the girl. There are not nianv such hours in a lifetime, he is also thinkinr;-, when nat- Their Pihjrhnage. 87 i\w can l>e seen in sucli a cliarm'm^- mood, and for the moment it compensates for the ni^lit ride. Tile party indulged this feelinLc wlien tliey hmded, still early, at the Ne^vport wharf, and decided to walk through the old town up to tlu' hotel, ]ierl'ectlv well aware that after tliis no money would hire them tii leave their beds and enjoy this novel sensation at such an hour. They had the street to themselves, and the ])romenade was one of discovery, and had much the interest of a landing in a foreign city. "It is so English," said the artist. "It is so colonial," said Mr. King, "though I've no doubt that any one of the sleeping occupants of these houses would be wide-awake instantly, and come out anil ask you to breakfast, if they heard you say it is so English." "If tliev "were not restrained," Marion suggested, ''bv the feeling that that would not be linglisli. IIow fine the shade trees, and what brilliant banks of flowers I" "And such lawns! AVe cannot make this turf in Virginia," was the reflection of i\Ir. De Long. "Well, colonial if you like," the artist re]ille<>rt he was juittint;- hiniself out of the pale of the liest society; hut he had a fancv for view- ing this society from the outside, having often enough seen it from the insis he had other reasons for this eccentric conduct, lie had, at any rate, declined the invitation of his cousin, 3I"s. l_!art- lett GloT\', to her eoltage on the Point of Rocks. It was not without regret that lie did this, for his cousin was a very charming woman, and devoted exclusively to the most exclusi-s-e social life. Her hushand had hecn something in the oil line in New York, and King had watched with interest his evolution from the husi- iiess man into the fulhhlown existence of a man of fashion. The process is jierfectly charted. Success in husiness, membership in a good cluh, tandem in the Park, introduction to a good house, man-i.age to a pretty girl of family and not much monev, a vaclit, a four-indiand, a Newport villa. Ills name had under- gone a like evolution. It used to he written on his husiness card, Jacob B. Glow. It was entered at the club as J. Bartlett Glow. On the wedding invitations it was Mr. Bartlett Glow, and the dashing pair were always spoken of at Newport as the Bartlett-Glows. When ]Mr. Kin"- descended from his room at the 9U Their T'ilgrunage. Ocean House, althongli it was not yet eight o'clock, lie was not surprised to see Mr. Benson tilted Lack in one of the chairs on the long piazza, out of the way of the scrubbers, with his air of patient waiting and obserya- tion. Irene used to say that her father ought to write a book — " Life as Seen from Hntel Piazzas.'' Ilis only idea of recreation when away from business seemed to be sitting about on them. "The women-folks," he explained to Mr. King, who took a chair beside him, '■ won't be down for an hour yet. I like, myself, to see the show open." " Are there many people here ?" " I guess the house is full enough. But I can't find out that anybody is actually stopping here, except ourselves and a lot of schoolmarms come to attend a conyention. They seem to enjoy it. The rest, those I'ye talked with, just happen to be here for a day or so, neyer ha"\e been to a hotel in Xewport before, al- ways stayed in a cottage, merely put up here now to yisit friends in cottages. You'll see that none of them act like they belonged to the hotel. Folks are queer. At a place we were last summer all the summer Ijoard- ers, in boarding-houses round, tried to act like they were staying at the big hotel, and the hotel people swelled about on the fact of Ijeiug at a hotel. Here you're nobody. I hired a carriage by the week, driver in buttons, and all that. It don't make any difference. I'll bet a gold dollar every cottager knows it's hired, and probably they think by the drive." "It's rather stupid, then, for you and the ladies." "Xot a bit of it. It's the nicest place in America: such grass, such horses, such women, and the drive Their Pll'jrlvuKjc. 91 ruuiul the island — thciv's nothiii^- like it in the coun- try. We take it every day. Yes, it would lie a little lonesome l)ut for the oeean. It's a y-ood deal like a funeral procession, nobody i-ver recognizes you, not even tlie hotel people who are in hired hacks. ]f I were to coiue a.ijjain, Mr. King, I'd come in a yacht, drive up from it in a box on two wheels, witli a man clinging o)i behind with his l)ack to me, and have a cottage witli an Englisli gardt^ner. That would fetch 'em. Money won't do it, not at a hotel. But I'm not snre but I like this way best. It's an oecujiation for a man to keep np a cottage." "And so you do not find it dull?" " Xo. AVhen we aren't out riding, she and Irene go on to the cliffs, and I sit here and talk real estate. It's about all there is to talk of." There was an awkward moment or two -^Ahen the two parties met in the loldjv and were introduced be- fore going into breakfast. There was a little putting u]i of guards on the part of the ladies. Between Irene and Marion passed that rapid glance of insjiection, that one glance which includes a study and the pass- ing of judgment upon family, manners, and dress, dtiwn to the least detail. It seemed to be satisfactory, for after a few words of civility' the two girls walked in together, Irene a little dignified, to be sure, and IVFarion with her wistful, half-inquisitive expression. Jlr. King could not be mistaken in thinking Irene's manner a little constrained and distant to him, and less cordial than it was to Mr. Forbes, but the mother righted the family balance. "I'm right glad you've come, Mr. King. It's like 92 Their IHhjriiaafje. seeing; someljody from home. I told Irene that T\-hen vou came I guess ■^'e should know somebijdy. It's an awful fashionable place." " And you have no acquaintances here V" "Xo, not really. There's Mrs. Peahody has a cot- tage here, what they call a cottage, hut there's no such house in Cyrusville. We drove past it. Her daugh- ter was to school with Irene. We've met 'em out riding several times, and Sally (Miss Peahody) bowed to Irene, and pa and I bowed to everybody, but they haven't called. Pa says it's because we are at a hotel, but I guess it's been company or something. They were real good friends at school." Mr. King laughed. " Oh, ]Mrs. Benson, tl:e Pea- bodys were nobodys only a few years ago. I remem- ber when they used to stay at one of the smaller ho- tels." " Well, they seem nice, stylish people, and I'm sorry on Irene's account." At breakfast the party had topics enough in com- mon to make conversation lively. The artist was sure he should be delighted with the beauty and finish of Xewjjort. Miss Lamont iloulited if she should en- joy it as much as the freedom and freshness of the Catskills. Mr. King amused himself with drawing out Miss Benson on the contrast with Atlantic Citv. The dining-room was full of members of the Institute, in attendance upon the annual meeting, gray-beariled. long-faced educators, de^'otees of theories anil systems, known at a glance by a certain earnestness of manner and intensity of expression, middle-aged women of a resolute, intellectual countenance, and a s^reat crowd Their Pihjriinaije 93 ii{ youtliful selioolmistroKscs, just on the dividint,' line liftwei'ii doiiK'stic life and self-saeritice, still full of seutiiuent, and still leaning perhaps mure tn Tennyson and Lowell than to matheniaties and Old English. "They have a curious, mingled air of primness and gayety, as if gayety were not (juite j)rated seeing Irene again with decided interest. lie remem- bered exactly hi)"w she looked at Fortress Monroe, es- pecially one day when she entered the parlor, bowing right and left to persons she knew, stojijiing to chat with (ine and another, tall, slender waist swelling u])- wards in symmetrical lines, brown hair, dai'k-gray eyes — he recalled every detail, the high-bred air (which was certainly not inherited), the unconscious perfect carriage, and his thinking in a vague way that such ease and grace meant good living and leisure and a sound body. This, at any rate, Avas the image in his mind — a sufficiently distracting thing for a young man to carry aliout with him; and now as he walked be- side her he was conscious that there was something much finer in her than the image he had carried with him, that there Avas a charm of speech and voice and exjiression that made her different from any other woman he had ever seen. Who can define this charm, this difference? Some women Iiave it for the uni- versal man — they are desired of every nutn who sees 90 Their PlUjriiiHige. tliem; their way to mari'iage (wliieli is commonly un- fortunate) is over a causeway of prostrate forms, if not of cracked hearts ; a few such women li^ht up and make the romance of history. Tlie majority of wom- en fortunately have it for one man only, and some- times he never apyjears on the scene at all! Yet every man thinks his choice belongs to the first class; even King liegan to wonder that all Xcwport was not rav- ing over Irene's beauty. The present writer saw her one day as she alig;hted from a carriage at the Ocean House, her face flushed with the sea air, and he re- memliers that he thought her a fine gli'l. "By George, that's a fine woman 1" exclaimed a Xew York bache- lor, who prided himself on knowing horses and women and all that: liut the country is full of fine women — this to him was only one of a thousand. What were this couple talking aljout as they prom- enaded, basking in each other's presence '? It does not matter. They were getting to know each other, quite as much by what they did not say as by what they did say, Ijy the thousand little exchanges of feeling and sentiment which are all-important, and never ap- pear even in a stenographer's report of a conversation. Only one thing is certain afiout it. that the girl could recall every word that 3Ir. King said, even his accent and look, long after he had forgotten even tlie theme of the talk. One thing, however, he did carry away with him, which set him thinking. The girl had been read- ing the ''Life of Carlyle,"and she took up the cudgels for the old curmudgeon, as King called him, and de- clared that, when all was said, 31rs. Carlvle was hap- pier with iiim than she \vould Inn e b^en with anv Their Pilgrimage. 97 otlier man in England. "What woman of sjiirit Avouldn't rather mate witli an eagle, and quarrel half the time, than with a humdrum liarn-vard fowl V" And Mr. Stanhope King, when he went away, i-etleet- ed that he who had fitted himself for the bar, and travelled extensively, and had a moderate eonipetenee, hadn't settled down to anjr sort of career, lie had al- ways an intention of doing something in a vague way; Tiut now the thought that he was idle made him foi- the first time decidedly nneasy, for he had an indistinct notion that Irene couldn't approve of snch a life. This feeling hannted him as he was making a round of calls that day. He did not return to lunch or din- ner — if he had done so he would have found that Inncli was dinner ami that dinner was s>i]i])er — another ^'ital distinction between tlie hotel and the cottage. The rest of the party had gone to the cliffs with the artist, the girls on a pretence of learning to sketch from nat- ure. Mr. Kiiig (lined with his cousin. "Yon are a bad boy, Stanhope," was the greeting of Mrs. Bartlett Glow, " not to come to me. Why did you go to the hotel ?" "Oh, I tliought I'd see life; Iliad an unaccoinitalile feeling of independence. Besides, I've a friend with me, a very clever artist, who is re-seeing his country after an absence of some years. And there are some other people." " Oh, ves. What is her name ?" " Why, there is quite a party. We met them at different places. There's a very bright Xew York girl. Miss Lamont, and her uncle from Richmond." ("Never heard of her," interpolated Mrs. Glow.) 7 98 Their F ilgrimaije . "And a Mr, and Mrs. Benson and their daughter, from Ohio. Mr. Benson has made money; Mrs. Benson, good-hearted old hidy, rather plain and — " "Yes, I know the sort; had a falling-out withLind- ley Murray in her youth and never made it up. But what I want to know is about the giid. What makes you beat about the bush so ? What's her name ?" "Irene. She is an uncommonly clever girl; edu- cated; been abroad a good deal, studying in Germany; had all advantages; and she has cultivated tastes; and the fact is that out in Cyrusville — that is where they live — You know how it is here in America when the girl is educated and the old people are not — " " The long and short of it is, you want me to invite them here. I suppose the girl is plain too — takes after her mother ?"' "Xot exactly. Mr. Forbes — that's my friend — says she's a beauty. But if you don't mind, Penelope, I was going to ask you to be a little civil to them." " Well, I'll admit she is handsome — a very striking- looking girl. I've seen them driving on the Avenue day after day. Xow, Stanhope, I don't mind asking them here to a five o'clock; I suppose the mother will have to come. If she was staying with somebody here it would be easier. Yes, I'll do it to oblige you, if you will make yourself useful while you are here. There are some girls I want you to know, and mind, my young friend, that you don't go and fall in love with a country girl whom ncibody knows, out of the set. It won't be comfortable." "You are always giving me good advice, Penelope, and I should be a different man if I had profited by it." The'ti' Pihjrhuaijt'. 99 " DoiTt lie satirical, Ijecause y(in'\c i-oaxed iiu> to do y<.iu a favor." Late ill the eveiiiiit;- the geiitleiiuii of the hotel ]iarty looked ill at the skatiiiy-rink, a n'rent j\iiiericaii institu- tidii that has for a large class taken the |ilacc of the ball, the social circle, the evening nieeliiig. It seemed a little iiK'i)iigruous to find a great rink at Xcu|>(>rt, liut an ejiideiuie is stronger than fashion, and even the most exclusive summer resort must Inne its rink. KoUer-skating is said to lie tine exercise, lint the liene- fit of it as exercise would cease to l)e apjiarent if there were a separate rink for each sex. There is a certain exhilaration in the lights and ninsii' ami the lively croA\'d, and alwa^'s an attraction in the frecilom of in- tercourse offered. The rink has its world as the opera has, its romances and its hen.ies. Idie frequenters of the rink know the yiuuig women and the young men who have a national rcjiutation as ale in finely from the south, to bathe or see others bathe. The beach used to be lined with carriages at that hour, and the surf, for a quarter of a mile, presented the appear- ance of a line of picturesquely clad skirmishers going out to battle wnth the surf. To-day there were not half a dozen carriages and omnibuses altogether, and the Ijatliers were few — utirsei'y-maidsj fragments of a day-excursion, and some of the fair conventionists. Kewport was not there. Mr. King had led his partv into another social blunder. It has ceased to be fash- ionable to bathe at Xewport. Strangers and servants may do so, but the cottagers have withdrawn their support from the ocean. Salt-water may be carried to the house and used without loss of caste, but Viathing in the surf is vulgar. A gentleman mav c'o down and take a dip alone — it had better be at an earlv hour — and the ladies of the house may be heard to apologize for his ecccntrieitv, as if his fondness for the water Their PUgrimage. 105 were al>iiorn\al aii])ened tt) be in the parlor, was in- cluded in the invitation. Mrs. Glow was as gracious as ]iossible, and esjiecially attentive to the old lady, who purred \\\t\\ jdeasure, and beamed and expanded into familiarity under the laicouragement of the wom- an (if the world. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Glow had learned the chief points in the family history, the state of health and habits cif ]ia (;Mr. Benson), and all about Cyrus^ille and its wonderful growth. In all 106 Their Pilgrimage. this Mrs. Glow manifested a deep interest, and learned, by observing out of the corner of her eye, that Irene was in an agony of apprehension, which she tried to conceal under an increasing coolness of civility. "A nice lady," was Mrs. Benson's comment when Mrs. Glow had taken herself away with her charmingly- scented air of frank cordiality — "a real nice lady. She seemed just like our folks." Irene heaved a deep sigh. " I suppose we shall have to go." " Have to go, chihl ? I should think you'd like to go. I never saw such a girl — never. Pa and me are just studying all the time to please you, and it seems as if — " And the old lady's voice broke down. " Why, mother dear '' — and the girl, with tears in her eyes, leaned over her and kissed her fondlv, and stroked her hair — "you are just as good and sweet as you can be; and don't mind me; vou know I get in moods sometimes." The old lady pulled her down and kissed her, and looked in her face with beseeching eyes. "What an old frump the mother is!" was Mrs. Glow's comment to Stanhope, when she next met him; "but she is immenselv amusing." " She is a kind-heaited, motherly woman," replied King, a little sharply. " Oh, motherly! Has it come to that '? I do lielieve you are more than half gone. The girl is jiretty; she has a beautiful figure; liut, my gracious ! her pa- rents are impossible — just impossible. And don't you think she's a little too intellectual for societv? I 108 Their Pilgrimage. don't mean too intellectual, of course, but too mental, don't you know — shows that first. You know what I mean." "But, Penelope, I thought it was the fashion now to he intellectual — go in for reading, and literary cluhs, Dante and Shakespeare, and political economy, and all that." " Yes. I belong to three clubs. I'm going to one to-morrow morning. We are going to take ujj the 'Disestablishment of the English Church.' That's different; we make it fit into social life somehow, and it doesn't interfere. I'll tell you what. Stanhope, I'll take Miss Benson to the Town and County Club next Saturday." " That will be too intellectual for Miss Benson. I suppose the topic will be Transcendentalism ?" "Xo; we have had that. Professor Spor, of Cam- bridge, is going to lecture on Bacteria — if that's the way Tou pronounce it — those mite.s that get into every- thing." " I should think it would be very improving. I'll tell Miss Benson that if she stays in Xewjiort she must improve her mind." "You can make yourself as disagreeable as von like to me, but mind you are on your good behavior at din- ner to-night, for the Misses Pelham will be here." The five-o'clock at Mrs. Bartlett Glow's was prob- ably an event to nobody in XewjMirt exeejit Mrs. Ben- son. To most it was only an incident in the afternoon round and drive, but everybody liked to go there, for it is one of the most charming of the nKjderate-sized villas. The lawn is planted in exipusite taste, and the llicir rUgrhnagc. 109 g-ank-iKT has st't in the <>\\^n\ ispaccs nf orccii the iiKJst ingenious deviees of ti(M\-ers and folia^-e plants, and notliini;- could lie n\ore enchanting than the view from the wide veranda on the sea side. In tliecirv, the oceu- jiants lounge there, read, embroider, ami swing in ham- mocks; in point of fact, the hreeze is usual! v so strono- that these occupations are carried on in -doors. The roonns were well tilled with a moving, chatter- ing crowd when the Bensons arrived, hut it could not lie said that their entrance was unnoticed, for Mr. Ben- son was conspicuous, as Irene had in vain hinted to her father that he would be, in his evening suit, and Mrs. Benson's beaming, extra-gracious manner sent a little shiver of amusement through the polite civility of the room. " I was afraid v\-e should be too late," was IMrs. Ben- son's response to the smiling greeting of the hostess, with a most friendly look towards the rest of the com- pany. " Mr. Benson is always behimlhand in getting dressed for a party, and he said he guessed the party could wait, and — " Before the sentence was finished ]Mrs, Benson found herself passed on and in charge of a certain g-eneral, ^x\\o was charged by the hostess to get her a cup of tea. Her talk went right on, however, and Irene, who was still standing by the host, noticed that wherever her mother went there was a lull in the general conver- sation, a slight pause as if to catch what this motherly old person might be saying, and such phrases as, " It doesn't agree with me, general; I can't eat it," "Yes, I got the rhenmatiz in New Orleans, and he did too," tJoated over the hum of talk. 110 Their I'ihjrhnage. In tlie introduction and movement tliat followeil Irene became one of a group of young ladies and gen- tlemen who, after the first exchange of civilities, 'n'ent on talking about matters of whieli she knew nothing, leaving her wholh' out of the conversation. The mat- ters seemed to be very important, and the conversa- tion was animated: it was about so-and-so who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or tlio last even- ing at the Casino, or the new trap on the A-\-enue — tlie delightful little chit-chat by means of which those who are in society exchange good understandings, but which excludes one not in the circle. The young gentleman next to Irene threw in an explanation now and then, but she was becoming thoroughly uncomfortable. She could not be unconscious, either, that she was the oTi- ject of polite, transient scrutiny by the lailies, and of glances of interest from gentlemen wlio did not ap- proach her. She began to be annoyed by the staring (the sort of stare that a woman recognizes as impu- dent admiration) of a young fellow who leaned against the mantel — a youth in English clothes who had caught very successfully the air of an English groom. Two girls near her, to ^diom she had been talking, began speaking in lowered voices in French, but she could not help overhearing them, and her face flushed hotly when she found that her mother and her appearance were the subject of their foreign remarks. Luckily at the moment Mr. King approached, and Irene extended her hand and said, with a laugh, "Ah, monsieur," sjteaking in a very pretty Paris accent, and perhaps with unnecessary distinctness, "you were quite right; the society here is verv dif- Their J'ihjriiiKigc. Ill fereiit from CyrusvilU'; tlicru they all talk about each otla-r." Mr. Kiiig^ \\-ho saw that soiiK'thiui;- had occurred, was quick-witted enough to reply jestingly in French, as they moved away, l)ut he asked, as soon as they were out of ear-shot, " What is it ?" "Nothing," saiil tlie girl, recovering her usual serenity. " I only said something for the sake of say- ing something; I ilidn't mean to speak disi-espectfully of my own town. But isn't it singular how local and jirovineial society talk is everywhere ? I must look uj) mother, and then I want you to take me <.>n the veranda for some air. M'hat a delightful house this is of your cousin's !" The two young ladies who had dropped into P'rench looked at each other for a moment after Irene moved away, and one of them spoke for l)otli when she ex- claimeil: "Did \o\\ ever see sneh rudeness in a draw- ing-room! Who could have dreamed that she under- stood?" Mrs. Benson had been established verv com- fortably in a corner with Professor iSlem, who was listening with great apparent interest to her acconnts of the early life in Ohio. Irene seemed relieved to get away into the open air, but she was in a mood that Mr. King could not account for. Upxm the veranda they encountered Miss Lamont and the artist, whose natural enjoyment of the scene somewhat restored her equanimity. Could there be anvthing ni<.ire refined and charming in the world than this landscape, this hospitable, smiling house, with the throng of easy-man- nered, pleasant-speaking guests, leisurely flowing along in the conventional stream of social comitv. One 112 Their Pilgrimage. must be a eliurl not to enjoy it. But Irene was not sorry ivhen, presently, it was time to go, though she tried to extract some comfort from her motlier's en- joyment of the occasion. It was beautiful. Mr. Ben- son was in a calculating mood. He thoucrht it needed a groat deal of money to make things run so smoothly. Why should one inquire in such a paradise if things do run smoothly ? Cannot one enjoy a rose without pulling it ujj hy the roots? I have no patience with those people who are always looking on the seamy side. I agree with the commercial traveller who says that it will only be in the millennium that all goods will be alike on both sides. Mr. King made the acquaintance in ISTewport of the great but somewhat philosophical Mr. Snodgrass, who is writing a work on " The Dis- comforts of the Rich," taking a view of life which he says has been wiiolly overlooked. He declares that their annoyances, sufferings, mortifications, envies, jealousies, disappointments, dissatisfactions (and so on through the dictionary of disagreeable emotions), are a great deal more than those of the poor, and that they are more worth}- of sympathy. Their trouljles are real and unbearable, because they are largelv of the mind. All these are set forth with so much powerful language and variety of illustration that King said no one could read the book without tears for the rich of Newport, and he asked Mr. Snodgrass why he did not organize a society for their relief. But the latter de- clared that it was not a matter for levity. The miserv is real. An imaginary case would illustrate his mean- ing. Suppose two persons quarrel about a purchase of land, and one builds a stable on his lot so as to shut Then' Plhjrhnaije. 113 out his neighbor's vic\v of the sea. Would not the one suffer because he could not see tlie ocean, and tlie nther by reason of tlie re\-eu_;eful state ut when owners have no ideas about architecture or about gar- dening, and their places are the creation of some ex- jierimenting architect and a foreign gardener, and the ■whole effort is not to express a person's individual taste and character, Init to make a show, then discon- tent as to his own will arise whenever some new and more showy villa is built. Mr. Benson, Avho was pok- ing about a good deal, strolling along the lanes and getting into the rears of the houses, said, \vhen this book was discussed, that his impression was that the real oliject of these fine places was to support a lot of Eng- lish gardeners, grooms, and stable-boys. They are a kind of aristocracy. They have really made Newport (that is the summer, transient Newport, for it is large- ly a transient Newport). "I've l.ieen incpiiring," con- tinued Mr. Benson, '• and you'd be surprised to know the number of people who come here, buy or build ex- 8 114 Their Pilgrimage. pensive villas, splurge out for a year or two, then fail or get tired of it, and disappear." ]Mr. Snodgrass devotes a chapter to the parvenues at Xewjiort. By the parvenu — his definition may not be scientific — he seems to mean a person who is vulgar, but has money, and tries to get into society on the strength of his money alone. He is more to be pitied than any other scrt of rich man. For lie not only works hard and suffers humiliation in getting his place in society, but after he is in he worKS just as hard, and with bitterness in his heart, to keep out other parvenues like himself. And this is misery. But our visitors did not care for the philosophizing of Mr. Snodgrass — yon can spoil almost anything by turning it wrong side out. They thought Xewport the most beautiful and finished watering-jjlace in America. Nature was in the loveliest mood when it was created, and art has generallj^ followed her sug- gestions of beauty and refinement. They did not agree with the cynic who said that Newport ouglit to be walled in, and have a gate with an inscription, " Xone but Millionaires alloweil here." It is very easy to get out of the artificial Newport and to come into scenery that Nature has made after artistic de- signs which artists are satisfied with. A favorite drive of our friend.s was to the Second Beach and the Purgatory Rocks overlooking it. The photographers and the water-color artists have exaggerated the Pur- gatory chasm into a Colorado caiion, but anybody can find it by lielp of a guide. The rock of this locality is a curious study. It is an agglomerate made of peb- bles and cement, the pebbles being elongated as if by Their Pil'jr image. 115 pressure. Tlic ruck is sometimes tViund in detaclieil fragments having the tnrm of tree trunks. Whenever it is fractured, tiie fracture is a clean cut, as if maile by a saw, ami through both pebbles and cement, and the ends present the appearance of a comjiosite cake filled with almonds and cut with a knife. The laml- scape is beautiful. "All the lines are so simple," the ai'tist exjilained. " The shore, the sea, the gray rocks, with lure and there the roof of a quaint cottage to enliven the effect, and few trees, only just enough for contrast with the long, swee])ing lines." "You don't like trees'?" asked Miss Lamont, " Yes, in themselves. IJut trees are apt to be in the A\'ay. There are too many trees in America. It is not often you can get a broad, simple eft'ect like this." It ha]ipeneort, hut the longer you stay there the better you like it; and if any too frank person admits that he would not stay in Narragansett a day if he cnuld afford to live in Xewport, he is sus- pected of aristiicratic proclivities. In a calm summer morning, sncli as onr jiartv i>f ])ilgrims chose for an excursion to the Pier, there is no prettier sail in the world than that out of the luirlnu-, by Conanicnt Island and Beaver-tail Light. Tt is a holiday harbor, all these seas arc holiday seas — the yachts, the sail vessels, the jnitfing steannu's, luoving swiftly from one headland to another, or loafing alxuit the blue, smiling' sea, are all on pleasure bent. The vagrant vessels that are idly watched from the rocks at the Pier may be coasters and freight schooners en- gaged seriously in trade, but they do not seem so. They are a part of the picture, always to be seen slow- ly dipping' ailing in the Imrizon, and the impression is 120 Their Pllijrlmage. that they are niaiiceuvrcd for show, arranged for pict- uresque effect, and that they are all taken in at night. The visitors confessed when they landed that the Pier was a contrast to Kewport, The shore below the landing is a line of broken, ragged, slimy rocks, as if they had been dumped there for a rijjrajj wall. Fronting this unkempt shore is a line of barrack-like hotels, with a few cottages of the cheap sort. At the end of this row (>f hotels is a fine granite Casino, spa- cious, solid, with wide verandas, and a tennis-court — such a building as even Newport might envy. Then come more hotels, a cluster of cheap shops, and a long line of bath-houses facing a lovely curving beach. Bathing is the fashion at the Pier, and everybody goes to the Ijeach at noon. The spectators occupy chairs on the platform in front of the bath-houses, or sit under tents erected on the smooth sand. At high noon the scene is very lively, and even picturesque, for the ladies here dress for bathing with an intention of pleasing. It is generally supposed that the angels in heaven are not edified by this promiscuous bathing, and liy the spectacle of a crowd of women tossing about in the surf, but an im]iartial angel would admit that many of the costumes here are becomino-, and that the effect of the red and yellow caps, makino- a color line in the fiashing rollers, is charmino-. It is true that there are odd figures in the shifting mKlee — one solitary old gentleman, wlio had contrived to get his bathing-suit on hind-side before, wandered along the ocean margin like a lost Flysses; and that fat woman and fat man were never intenddl for this sort of ex- hibition; but taken altogether, with its colors, and the Tlieir I'ilgn mge. 121 silver flasli of the Lreakino- waves, the scene was ex- ceediii^lv pretty. Not tlie least pretty part of it was the fringe of ehildren tumbling on the beach, follow- ing the retreating waves, and flying fi'oni the incom- ing rollers with screams of delight. Children, indeed, A CATAJI.VKAN. are a characteristic of Narragansett Pier — ehildren and mothers. It might be said to be a family place; it is a goml deal so on Sundays, and occasionally when the "business men" come down from the cities to see how their wives and children get on at the hotels. After the Ijathiug it is the fashion to meet again at 122 Their Pilgrimage. the Casino and take lunch — sometimes through a straw — and after dinner everybody goes for a stroll on the cliffs. This is a noble sea-promenade; with its hand- some villas and magnificent rocks, a fair rival to New- port. The walk, as usually taken, is two or three miles along the bold, rocky shore, but an ambitious pedestrian may continue it to the light on Point Ju- dith. Nowhere on this coast are the rocks more im- posing, and nowhere do they offer so many studies in color. The visitor's curiosity is excited by a massive granite tower which rises out of a mass of tangled woods planted on the crest of the hill, and his curios- ity is not satisfied on nearer inspection, when he makes his way into this thick and gloomy forest, and finds a granite cottage near the tower, and the signs of neg- lect and wildness that might mark the home of a re- cluse. What is the object of this noble tower ? If it was intended to adorn the landscape, why was it ruined by piercing it irregularly with square windows like those of a factory ? One has to hold himself back from lieing drawn into the history and romance of this Xarragansett shore. Down below the bathing beach is the preten- tious wooden pile called Canonchet, that already wears the air of tragedy. And here, at this end, is the mys- terious tower, and an ugly unfinisheil dwelling-house of granite, with the legend " Druid's Dream " carved over the entrance door; and farther inland, in a sandy and slirul:jby landscape, is Kendall Green, a ]n-ivate cemetery, with its granite monument, surrounded by heavy granite posts, every other one of which is hol- lowed in the top as a receptacle for food for birds. Their Pilgrimage. 123 Anil one reads tliero these inscriptions: " Wliatever their mode of faith, or creed, who feed the wanderint,' birds, will themselves be fed." " Who helps the lielji- less, Heaven will help." This inland region, now ap- parently deserted and neolccted, was once the si'at of colonial aristocracy, who exercised a princely hosjiital- itj' on their great plantations, exchanged visits and ran horses with the planters of Virginia and the Caro- linas, and were known as far as Kentucky, and per- haps best known for their breed of Narragansett piacers. But let us get back to the shore. In wandering alery rocks with the incoming tide. It was a ridiculous position for lovers, or even ■' friends " — ridiculous because it had no element of danger except the ignominy of getting wet. If there was any heroism in seizing Irene before she could ])ro- test, stumbling with his burden among the slimy rocks, and depositing her, with only wet shoes, on the shore, Mr. King shared it, and gained the title of "Life-pre- server." The adventure ended with a laugh. The day after the discovery and exjiloration of Xar- ragansett, Mr. King spent the morning with his cousin at the Casino. It was so pleasant that he wondered he bad not gone there oftener, and that so few people frequented it. "Was it that the cottagers were too strong for the Casino also, which was built for the recreation of the cottagers, and that they found when it came to the test that they could not with comfort come into any sort of contact with popular life? It is not large, but no summer resort in Europe has a prettier place for lounging and reunion. None have such an air of refinement and exclusiveness. Indeed, one of the chief attractions and entertainments in the foreign casinos and conversation-halls is the mingling there of all sorts of peoples, and the animation aris- 128 Their Pilgrimage. ing from diversity of conditions. This popular com- mingling in pleasure resorts is safe enough in aristo- cratic countries, but it will not answer in a republic. The Xowport Casino is in the nature of a club of the best society. The building and grounds express the most refined taste. Exteriorly the house is a long, low Queen Anne cottage, with brilliant shops on the ground-Hoor, and above, behind the wooded balconies, is the clubroom. The tint of the shingled front is brown, and all the colors are low and blended. With- in, the court is a mediaeval surprise. It is a miniature castle, such as might serve for an opera scene. An extension of the galleries, an ombre, completes the circle around the plot of close-clipped green turf The house itself is all balconies, galleries, odd win^ dows half overgrown and hidden by ivj^, and a large gilt clock-face adds a touch of piquancy to the antique charm of the faijade. Beyond the first court is a more spacious and less artificial lawn, set with fine trees, and at the bottom of it is the brown building containinsr ballroom and theatre, bowling-alley and closed tennis- court, and at an angle with the second lawn is a pretty field for lawn-tennis. Here the tournaments are held, and on these occasions, and on ball nights, the Casino is thronged. If the Casino is then so exclusive, why is it not more used as a rendezvous and lounging-place ? Alas! it must be admitted that it is not exclusive. By an as- tonishing concession in the organization anv person can gain admittance by paying the sum of fifty cents. This tax is sufficient to exclude the deserving poor, but it is only an inducement to the vulgar rich, and it Their Pihjvihiarjr. 129 is even Ijroken down by tlie jiroiligal excursionist, wlio coiiinionly sets out from home witli the intention of lieiuL;- reekless for one day. It is easy to see, tliereforc, why the eharni (if this delightful plaee is tarnished. Tin.' band -was playing tliis morning — not rink music — when Sirs. Glow and King entered and tuok ehairs on the ombre. It was a very pretty scene; moi'e j)eo- ]ile were present than usual of a morning, (rrfiups of half a dozen had drawn chairs together here and there, ami were chatting and laughing ; two oi' three exceed- ingly well-preserved old bachelurs, in the smart rough morning suits of the period, were entertaining their lady friends with clul) and horse talk; several old gen- tU'men were reading newspajiers; and there were some dowager-looking niamnnis, and seated by them their cold, lieantiful, liigh-bred daughters, who wore their visible exclusiveness like a garment, and contrasted with some other young ladies ■\\ho were i)romenading with English-looking young men in flannel suits, who might be described as lawn-teiniis young ladies con- scious of hieing in the mode, but wanting the indescrib- able atmosphere of high - breeding. Doubtless the nnist interesting persons to the student of human life were the young fellows in lawn-tennis suits. They had the languid air, which is so attractive at their age, of having found out life, and decided that it is a bore. Nothing is worth making an exertion about, not even pleasure. They had come, one could see, to a just ap- preciation of their value in life, and understood quite well the social manners of the mammas and girls in whose company they condescended to dawdle and make, languidly, cynical observations. They had, in 9 130 Their P'tlgrimage. truth, tlie manner of playing at fashion and elegance as in a stage comedy. King could not help thinking tliere was something theatrical about them altogether, and he fancied that when he saw them in their " traps " on the Avenue they were going through the motions for show and not for enjoyment. Probahly King was mistaken in all this, having been abroad so long that he did not understand the evolution of the American gilded youth. In a pause of the music ]Mrs. Bartlett Glow and Mr. King were standing with a group near the steps that led down to the inner lawn. Among them were the Postlethwaite girls, whose beauty and audacity made such a sensation in Washington last winter. They were bantering Mr. King about his Narragansett ex- cursion, his cousin having maliciously given the party a hint of his encounter with the tide at the Pier. Just at this moment, happening to glance across the lawn, he saw the Bensons coming towards the steps, Mrs. Benson waddling over the grass and beaming towards the group, Mr. Benson carrying her shawl and looking as if he had been hired by the day, and Irene listlessly following. Mrs. Glow saw them at the same moment, but gave no other sign of her knowledge than by striking into the banter with more animation. Mr. King intended at once to detach himself and advance to meet the Bensons. But he could not rudely break awa}' from the unfinished sentence of the younger Postlethwaite girl, and the instant that was con. eluded, as luck would have it, an elderly lady joined the group, and Mrs. Glow went through the formal ceremony of introducing King to her. He hardly Their Pilgrimage. 131 knew how it happened, only that he inacle a hasty bow to the Bensoiis as he was shaking- hands with the ceremonious ohl lady, and tliey liad ifoiie to the door of exit, lie gave a little start as if to follow them, which j\Irs. Glow noticed -with a lauixh and the re- mark, "You can catch them if you I'un," and then he weakly suhmiLted to his fate. After all, it was only an accident, which would hardly need a word of ex- planation. But what Irene saw was tliis: a distant nod from Mrs. Glow, a cool survey and stare from the Postletlnvaite girls, and the failure of Mr. King to recognize his friends any further than by an inditfer- ent bow as he turned to speak to another lady. In the raw state oi her sensitiveness she felt all this as a ter- rible and jiei'haps intendeil humiliation. King did not return to the hotel till evening, and then lie sent >ip his card to the Bensons. Word came back that the ladies were packing, and must lie ex- cused. He stood at the office desk and wrote a hasty note to Irene, attempting an explanation of what might seem to her a rudeness, and asked that he might see her a moment. And then he paced the corridor wait- ing for a rej)ly. In his impatience the fifteen minutes that he waited seemed an hour. Then a bell-boy handed him this note: "My peak 3Ik. Kixg, — No explanation whatever was needed. We never shall forget your kindness. Good-bye. Irene Bexs(_in." He folded the note carefully and put it in his breast pocket, took it out and reread it, lingx'i'ing over the fine and dainty signature, put it back again, and 132 Tludr Pilgrimage. ■walked out upon the piazza. It -n-as a divine night, soft and sweet-scented, and all the rustling trees were luminous in the electric light. From a window opening upon a balcony overhead came the clear notes of a barytone voice enunciating the old-fashioned words of an English ballad, the refrain of which ex- liressed hopeless separation. The eastern coast, with its ragged outline of bays, headlands, indentations, islands, capes, and sand-spits, from Watch Hill, a favorite breezy resort, to Mount Desert, jjresents an almost continual chain of hotels and summer cottages. In fact, the same may be said of the whole Atlantic front from Mount Desert down to Cape May. It is to the traveller an amazing spec- tacle. The American people can no longer be re- proached for not taking any summer recreation. The amount of money invested to meet the requirements of this vacation idleness is enormous. When one is on the coast in July or August it seems as if the whole fifty millions of people had come down to lie on the rocks, wade in the sand, and dip into the sea. But this is not the case. These crowds are only a fringe of the pleasure-seeking population. In all the mountain regions from Xorth Carolina to the Adiron- dacks and the White Hills, along the St. Lawrence and the lakes away up to the Northwest, in every elevated village, on every mountain- side, about every pond, lake, and clear stream, in the wilderness and the se- cluded farmhouse, one encounters the traveller, the summer boarder, the vacation idler, one is scarcely out of sight of the American flas;' iivinsr over a summer re- ' UnNISTEHING ANGELS " AT THE SEA-SIDE HOTEL. sort. In no other nation, probabl_Y, is there such a gen- eral summer hegira, no other offers on such a vast scale such variety of entertainment, and it is needless 131 Their PiJgririiage. to say that history ]>resents no parallel ti) tliis general movement of a poojjle for a summer outing. Yet it is no doubt true that statistics, which always upset a broad, generous statement such as I have made, would show that the majority of people stay at home in the summer, and it is undeniable that the vexing question for everybody is where to go in Julj- and August. But there are resorts suited to all tastes, and to the economical as well as to the extravagant. Perhaps the strongest impression one has in visiting the various watering-places in the summer-time is that the multi- tudes of every-day folk are abi'oad in search of enjoy- ment. On the New Bedford boat for 3Iartha's Vine- yard our little party of tourists sailed quite away from Newport life — Stanhope with mingled depression and relief, the artist with some shrinking from contact with anything common, while Marion stood upon tlie bow beside her uncle, inhaling the salt breeze, regarding the lovely fleeting shores, her cheeks glowing and her eyes sparkling with enjoyment. The passengers and scene, Stanhope was thinking, were typieallj' New England, until the boat made a landing at Naushon Island, when he was reminded somehow of Scotland, as much perhaps b}' the wild, furzv apjjearance of the island as by the "gentle-folks" who went ashore. The boat lingered for the further disembarkation of a number of horses and carriages, with a piano and a cow. There was a farmer's lodge at the landing, and over the rocks and amid the trees the picturesque roof of the villa of the sole proprietor of the island ap- peared, and gave a feudal aspect to the domain. The sweet grass affords good picking for sheep, and besides Their I'ilijrimaijc. 135 tliL' sheep the owner raises deer, which are destined to be chased and shot in the autumn. The artist noted that there were several distinct types of women on lioard, besides tlie common, straiijht-waisted, flat-cliested variety. One i;irl, who was ah)ne, with a city air, a neat, firm fii;ui'e, in a trav- elliui;- suit of elegant sim|>lieity, was fond of taking attitudes about the rails, and watching (lie effect pro- duced on the sjjectatijrs. There was a blue-eyed, sharp-faced, rather loose-jointed young girl, who had the manner of l:)eing familiar with the Ixiat, and talked readily and freely with anyljody, keejiing an eve occa- sionally on her sister of eight years, a child witli a seri- ous little face in a poke-bonnet, who used the language of a young lady of sixteen, and seemed also abundant- ly able to take care of herself. What this mite of a child wants of all things, she confesses, is a pug-faced dog. Presently she sees one come on Ijoard in the arms of a young lady at Wood's Holl, " No," she says, " I won't ask her for it; the lady wouldn't give it to me, and I wouhbi't waste my breath;" but she draws near to the dog, and regards it with raj it attention. The owner of the dog is a A'ery pretty Ijlack-eyed girl with banged hair, who prattles about herself and her dog with perfect freedom. She is staying at Cottage City, lives at Worcester, has been uji to Boston to meet and bring down her dog, without which she couldn't live another minute. " Perhaps," she says, "you know Dr. Ridgerton, in Worcester; he's my brother. Don't you know him'? lie's a chiropo- dist." Those girls are all types of the skating-rink — an in- 'IV \ *' \\\! \iu^ AN INTERIOK. stitiition whicb is Ijugiiniing to express itself in Ameri- can manners. The band "^vas plajnng on the pier when tlie steamer landed at Cottage City ( or Oak Bluff, as it was formerly called), and the pier and the gallery leading to it were crowded with spectators, mostly Avonien — a pleasing mingling of the skating-rink and sewing- circle varieties — and gayety was apparently aViont setting in with the dusk. Tlie rink and the go-round opposite the hotel were in full tilt. After supper King Their PihjrhniKje. 137 ami F(.irl)es took a cursory view of this strange eneaiii])- iiient, walking tlirough the streets of fantastic tiny cottatres anion" tlie scrub oaks, and saw somcthiufr of family life in the |>ainte(l little boxes, whose wide-open front doors gave to view tlie whole domestic economy, including the bed, centre-table, and melodeon. They strolled also on the elevated ])lank yn'omenade b\' the beach, encountering now and then a couple enjoying the lovely night. Music abounded. The circiis-])ump- ing strains burst out of the rink, calling t(j a gay and perhaps dissolute life. The band in the nearly eiii])ty hotel parlor, in a mournful mood, Mas wouing the guests wdio did not come to a soothing tune, sarted friends?" A proccssidu of lasses coming up the broad walk, ad- vancing out of the shadows of night, was heard afar off as the stalwart singers strode on, chanting in high nasal voices that lovely hymn, which seems to suit the rink as well as the night jironienade and the camp- meeting: "We shall nii — uiri vini — we shall ]iie-eet, nie-eeL — iiiii uin — we shall meet, In the sweet by-arn-Viy, by-am-hv — iim uni — liy-ani-hy. On the bu-u ii-u — on the bu-u-ti-u — on the Im-te-fiil shore.'' In the morning this fairy-like settlement, with its flimsy and eccentric architecture, took on more the ap- ]iearance of reality. The season was late, as irsual, and the hotels were still waiting for the crowds that seem to prefer to bo late and make a rushing carnival of August, but the tiny cottages were nearly all occu- pied. At 10 A.M. the band was playing in the three- story pagoda sort of tower at tlie bathing-place, and 138 Their PilgnmcKje. the three stories were erowdecl witli female speetators. Below, under the bank, is a long array of bath-houses, and the shallow water was alive with floundering and screaming bathers. Anchored a little out was a raft, from which men and boys and a few venturesome girls were diving, displajdng the human form in graceful curves. The crowd was an immensely good-humored one, and enjoyed itself. The sexes mingled together in the water, and nothing thought of it, as old Pepys would have said, although many of the tightly -fitting costumes left less to the imagination than would have been desired by a poet describing the scene as a phase of the comedie humaine. The band, having pjlaycd out its hour, trudged back to the hotel pier to toot while the noon steamboat landed its passengers, in order to impress the new arrivals with the mad joyousness of the place. The crowd gathered on the high gallery at the end of the [lier added to this effect of reckless holi- day enjoyment. Miss Lamont was infected with this gayety, and took a great deal of interest in this peri- patetic band, which was playing again on the hotel piazza before dinner, with a sort of mechanical hilari- ousness. The rink band opposite kejit up a lively com- petition, grinding out go-round music, imjiarting, if one may say so, a glamour to existence. The band is on hand at the pier at four o'clock to toot again, and pn-esently off, tramping to some other hotel to satisfy the serious pleasure of this people. While Mr. King could not help Avondering how all this curious life would strike Irene — he put his lone- someness and longing in this way — and what she would say about it, he endeavored to divert his mind by a TJic'ir PUrjrimage. 139 study of the conditidiis, and l)y siimc philosdjiliizini;- on the cliaiige that liad coiau over American Mnruner life -within a few yeai-s. In his investigations lie Mas assisted by 3Ir. De Long, to -\a lioni this social life Mas alisolutely new, and who was disposed to regard it as peeidiarly Yankee — the staid dissipation of a serlons- niindcd people. King, looking at it more Invjadly, found this pasteboard city by thQ sea one of the most interesting developments of American life. The origi- nal nucleus was the Methodist eami)-raeeting, whicli, in the season, brought liere twenty thousand to thirty thousand peojile at a time, mIio camped and picnicked in a someM'hat primitive style. Gradually the peojile who came here ostensibly for religions exei-cises made a longer and more permanent occupation, and, without losing its epiiemeral character, the place grcM' and de- manded more substantial acciimmodations. ^Idie spot is very attractive. Althougli the sluu'e looks to the east, and does not get the prevailing southern bi-eeze, and the beach has little surf, both water and air ai-e mild, the bathing is safe ami agreeable, and the \ie\v of the illimitable sea dotted with sails and fishing-boats is always pleasing. A croM'd begets a crowd, and soon the wiu'ld's people made a city larger than the original one, and still more fantastic, liy the aid of paint and the jig-saw. The tent, however, is the type of all th.e dwelling-houses. The hotels, restaurants, and shops follow the usual order of flamboyant seaside archi- tecture. After a time the Baptists established a canij) grcuind on the bluffs on the opposite side of the inlet. Tile world's people )>rought in the commercial element in the way of fancy shops f(U' the sale of all nuinner 140 Their Pilgrimage. of cheap and bizarre " notions," and introduced the common amusements. And so, although the camp- meetings do not begin till late in August, this city of play-bouses is occupied the summer long. The shops and shows represent the taste of the million, and al- though there is a similarity in all these popular coast watering-places, each has a characteristic of its own. The foreigner has a considerable opportunity of study- ing family life, whether he lounges through the nar- row, sometimes circular, streets by night, when it ap- pears like a fairy encampment, or by daylight, when there is no illusion. It seems to be a point of etiquette to show as much of the interiors as possible, and one can learn something of cooking and bed-making and mending, and the art of doing up the back hair. The jjhotographer revels here in pictorial opportunities. The pictures of these bizarre cottages, with the family and friends seated in front, show very serious groups. 0]ie of the Tabernacle — a vast iron hood or dome erected over rows of benches that will seat two or three thousand people — represents the building when it is packed with an audience intent ujjon the preacher. Most of the faces are of a grave, severe type, plain and good, of the sort of people ready to die for a notion. The impression of these photographs is that these peo- ple abandon themselves soberly to the pleasures of the sea and of this packed, gregarious life, and get solid enjoyment out of their recreation. Here, as elsewhere on the coast, the greater part of the population consists of women and children, and the young ladies complain of the absence of men — and, indeed, something is desirable in society be- Their I'Uijrlmacje. 141 in rounil- sides the snpevanniiated and tlie boys aliouts. Tlic artist and Miss Lamont, in searcli of tlie ]iict- uresque, liad tlic courage, altliongh tlie tbernionieter was in the humor to climb up to ninety degrees, to explore the ]>aptist encampment. Tlu'y were not rewarded liy anything new except at the landing, where, behind the bath-houses, the bathing suits were hung out to dry, and presented a comical spectacle, the humor of which seemed to be lost ujion all excejit themselves. It was such a caricature of humanity I The suits hang- ing upon the line and distended by the wind presented the appearance of headless, bloated forms, fat men and fat women kicking in the breeze, and vainly trying to climb o\er the line. It was probably merely fancy, but they declared that these images seemed larger, more bloated, and much livelier than those displayed on the Cottas'e Citv side. "When travellers can be en- LAST GLIMPSE OF MARTHA S VIXETAKD. tertained by trifles of this kind it shows that there is an absence of more serious amusement. And, indeed, although people were not wanting, and music was in Their I'llgrimaije. 143 tin- air, atid the bicycle and tricycle stable was well patronized by men and women, and the noon bathing A\'as well attendeproach to familiarity, and disincline a timid person to ask twice for pie; but in point of fact, as soon as the party be- came her bona-fide guests, she was royally hospitable, and only displayed anxiety lest they should not eat enough. "I like folks to be up and down and square," she began saying, as she vigilantly watched the effect of her culinary skill upon the awed little party. "Yes, I've got a regular hotel license; you bet I have. There's been folks lawed in this town for sellin' a meal >^\' THE MODEL HUSBAND. of victuals and not having one. I ain't goin' to l)e taken in by anybody. I warn't raiseil in Xinv Hamp- shire to be scared by these Massachusetts folks. No, I hain't got a girl now. I had one a spell, but I'd rather do my own work. You never knew what a girl was doin' or would do. After she'd left I found a broken plate tucked into the ash-barrel. Sho! you can't depend on a girl. Yes, I've got a husliand. It's easier to manage him. Well, I tell you a husband is 10 146 Their PUgrimage. Letter than a yirl. When \o\\ tell him to do anvtliiiig, you know it's goiii' to be done. He's always about, never loafin' round; he can take right hold and wash dishes, and fetch water, and anything." King went into the kitchen after dinner and saw this model husband, who had the faculty of making him- self generally xiseful, holding a baby on one arm, and stirring something in a pot on the stove with the other. He looked hot but resigned. There has been so much said about the position of men in Massachusetts that the travellers were glad of this evidence that husbands are beginning to be a]ipreciated. Under ijropjer train- ing they are acknowledged to be ''Ijetter than girls." It was late afternoon when they reached the quiet haven of Plymouth — a place where it is apparently always afternoon, a pdace of memory and reminiscences, where the whole effort of the population is to hear and to tell some old thing. As the railway ends there, there is no danger of being carried beyond, and the train slowly ceases motion, and stands still in the midst of a great and welcome silence. Peace fell up)on the travellers like a garment, and although they had as much difficulty in landing their baggage as the early Pilgrims had in getting theirs ashore, the circumstance was not able to disquiet them much. It seemed nat- ural that their trunks should go astray on some of the inextricably interlocked and Ijranching railways, and they had no doubt that when they had made the tour of the state they would be discharged, as thev finally were, into this cul-de-sac. The Pilgrims have made so much noise in the world, and so powerfully affected the continent, that our tour- Thcw PihirniiiifiP 147 isls wort' surjirisi'il td find tlic)' had lamlcd in siicli a qniet place, and tliat the spirit tht^y liave h'ft behind tliem is one of sneli tran(pullity. 'riu> vi]hii;e has a cliarni all its (iwn. jMany of the houses ai'e old-fashioned and square, some with eolonial (h)ors and porches, irrei^ulai'lv aligned on the main street, \v1)i(di is arehed hy am-ient and stately elms. In the spacious door-yards the lindens luiA'e had room and time to expand, and in the lieds of hloom the flowers, if not tlie ^■cry ones that our gi'aud- motliers planted, are the sorts tliat they loAcd. Showing that the town has grown in symjiathy with human needs and eccentricities, and is not the work of a survey- or, the streets are irreguhir, forming pictnres(jne an- gles and open spaces. Notliiiig c^' the water-side as an esplanade? It is a most cli:irniing feature of the village, and gives it what we call :i foreign air. It was very level}' in the after-glow and at nioonrise. Staiil citizens with their families oc- cupied the benches, groups were chatting under the spreading linden-tree at the n(.)rth entrance, and young maidens in white muslin promenaded, looking seaward, as was the wont of Puritan maidens, watching a re- ceding or coming Jlai/Jfuwer. But there was no loud talking, no laughter, no outbursts of merriment from the children, all ready to be transplanted to the Puri- tan heaven! It was high tide, and all the bay was silvery with a tinge of color from the glowing sky. The long, curved sand-spit — which was heavily wooded when the Pilgrims landed — was sihery also, and upon its northern tip glowed the white sparkle in the light- house like the evening-star. To the north, over the smooth pink water speckled with white sails, rose Captain Hill, in Duxbury, bearing the monument to Miles Standish. Clarke's Island (where the Pilgrims heard a sermon (jii the first Sunday), Saguish Point, and ' LOOKING SEAWARD, AS WAS THE WO^'T OF PURITAN MAIDENS. Guniett Headland (sliowing now twin wliite lights) ap- pear like a long island intersected hy tliin lines of blue water. The effect of these ribbons of alternate sand and water, of the lights and the ocean (or Gi'eat Bay) beyond, was exquisite. Even the unobtrusive tavern at the rear of the es- Their Pilgrimage. 151 lilanade, ancient, feebly lighted, and inviting, added somctliing to the picturesquoness of the scene. Tne (lid tree liy the gate — an English linden — illiiniinatcd by the street lamps and the moon, had a mysteri(jus ap- pearance, and the tourists were not surprised f(j learn that it lias a romantic histor}-. The story is tliat the twig or sapling from which it grew was bi-ou^ht over from England by a lover as a present Xo his mistress, that the lovers cpiarrelled almost immediatelv, that the girl in a pet threw it out of the window when she sent her hiver out of the door, and that another man ])ieked it up and planted it where it now grows. The Icgeml provokes a good many questions. One would like to know whether this was the tirst ease of female rebel- lion in Massachusetts against the common-law right of a man to correct a woman witli a stick not thicker than his little finger — a rebellion which has resulted in the position of man as the tourists saw him where the New Hampshire Amazon gave them a meal of victuals; and whether the girl married the man who planted the twig, and, if so, whether he did not regret that he had not kept it by him. This is a world of illusions. By daylight, when the tide was out, the pretty silver bay of the night befm-e was a mud flat, and the tourists, looking over it from Monument Hill, lost some of their respect for the Pil- grim sagacity in selecting a landing-place. They had ascended the hill for a nearer view of the monument, King with a reverent wish to read the name of his Mtojfloirirr ancestor on the tablet, the others in a spiriv of cold, Xew York criticism, for they thought the structure, which is still untini.shed, would look uglier 152 Their Pilgrimage. near at hand tlian at a distance. And it does. It is a pile of granite masonry surmounted Ijy symbolic figures. " It is such an unsj'mjiathetic, tasteless - looking tliingl" said Miss Lament. " Do you think it is the worst in the country?" "I wouldn't like to saj' that," replied the artist, " when the competition in this directiou is so lively. But just look at the drawing" (holding up his pencil with whicli he had intended to sketch it). " If it were cjuaint, now, or rude, or archaic, it might be in keeping, but bad drawing is just vulgar. I should think it had Ijeen designed by a carpenter, and executed by a stone- mason." "Yes," said the little Lamont, who always fell in with the most abominable opinions the artist expressed ; " it ought to have been made of wood, and painted and sanded." " You will please remember," mildly suggested King, who had found the name he was in search of, " that you are trampling on my ancestral sensibilities, as might be expected of those who have no ancestors who ever landed or ever were buried anywhere in particu- lar. I look at the commemorative spirit rather than the execution of the monument." "So do I," retorted the girl; "and if the Pilgrims landed iu such a vulgar, ostentatious spirit as this, I'm glail my name is not on the tablet." The party Avere in a better mood when they had climlicd up Burial Hill, back of the meeting-house, and sat down on one of the convenient benches amid the ancient gravestones, and looked upon the wide and Tlieir PRfjnmiuje. 153 luao-nifieeiit prospect. A soft summer wiml waved a little the long gray grass of the ancient resting-place, anil seemed to whisper peace to the weary generation tiiat lay there. What struggles, what heroisms, the names on the stones recalled! Here had stood the first fort of 1G2(), and here the watch-tower of 1G42, frciu the top of which the warder espied the lurking savage, or hailed the expected ship friun England. IIow much of history this view i-ocalled, and what pathos of human life these graves made real. Read the names of those buried a couple of centuries agd — • cajitaiiis, elders, ministers, governors, wives well be- loved, children a s]ian long, maidens in the blush of womanhood — half the tender inscriptions are illegilile; the stones are broken, sunk, slanting to fall. AVliat ." pitiful attempt to keep the world mindful of the de- parted! CHAPTER VI. Me. Staxhope Kixg was not in very good spirits. Even Boston did not make him cheerful. He was lialf annoyed to see the artist and Miss Lamont drifting along in such laughing good-humor with the world, as if a summer lioliday was just a holiday without any consequences or responsibilities. It was to him a seri- ous affair ever since that unsatisfactory note from Miss Benson; somehow the summer had lost its sparkle. And j^et was it not preposterous that a girl, just a sin- gle girl, should have the power to change for a man the asj^ect of a whole coast — by her presence to make it iridescent with beauty, and by her absence to take all the life out of it ? And a simple girl from Ohio! She was not by any means the prettiest girl in the Xewport Casino that morning, but it was her figure that he re- membered, and it was the look of hurt sensibility iu her eyes that stayed with him. He resented the attitude of the Casino towards her, and he hated himself for his share in it. He would write to her. He composed letter after letter in his mind, which he did not put on paper. How many millions of letters are composed in this way! It is a favorite occup)ation of imaginative people; and as they say that no thoughts or mental impressions are ever lost, but are all registered — made, as it were, on a " dry -plate," to be developed hereafter — Their PiUjrimafje. 165 wliat a vast <'oi-res])onileiK'(_' must l)e lyiiiL;' in the next world, ill tlie Dead-letter Office there, waitnii;- for the persons ti> whom it is addresseil, who will all receive it anil reail it some day! How unpleasant and alisunl it will lie to I'ead, much of it I I intend to he careful, for my ]iart, aliout composino- letters of this surt here- after. Irene, I dare say, will find a g-reat many of them from ]Mr. Kiul;-, thought out in those (hiys. IJut he mailed none of them to her. What sliould he say? Should he tell her that he didn't mind if her parents were Avdiat ]Mrs. Bartlett Glow called "impossihle "'? If he atteiii])ted any explanation, would it not iin'olve the offensive supposition that his social rank was ditferent from hers'.-' Even if he convinced lier that lie recog- nized no caste in American society, A\-hat could remove from her mind the somewhat morhid impression that her education had put her in a, false ])ositionV His love prohahly couhl not shield her from mortification in a societ V v>hich, though indetinahle in its limits and code, is an entity more vividly felt than the govern- ment of the ignited States. "Don't you think the wliole social atmosphere has changed,'' 3Iiss Lament suihlenly asked, as they were running along in the train towards I\[anchester-hy-the- Sea, "since we got north of Boston'? I seem to find it so. Don't von think it's more refined, and, don't von know, sort of cultivated, and suhdued, and Bos- ton '? You notice the gentlemen who get out at all tliese stations, to go to their country-houses, how high- ly civilized they look, and ineffably respectable and intellectual, all of them presidents of colleges, and sub- stantial bank directors, and jiossible ambassadors, and 156 Tlieir Filgrimage. of a social cult (isn't tliat the word?) uniting brains and gentle manners." " You must liave been reading the Boston ne-n'spa- pers; you have hit the idea prevalent in these parts, at any rate. I was, however, reminded myself of an afternoon train out of London, say into Surrey, on which you are apt to encounter about as high a type of civilized men as anywhere." " And you think this is different from a train out of Kew York?" asked the artist. "Yes. Xew York is more mixed. Xo one train has this kind of tone. You see there more of the broker type and politician type, smarter apparel and nervous manners, but, dear me, not this high moral and intellectual respectability." " "Well," said the artist, " I'm changing my mind abotrt this country. I didn't e.xpect so much variety. I thought that all the watering-jilaces would be pretty much alike, and that we should see the same peojde evcrvwhere. But the people are quite as \aried as the scenery." " There you touch a deep question — the refining or the vulgarizing influence of man upon nature, and the oj)posite. Xow, did the summer Bostonians make this coast refined, or did this coast refine the Bostonians who summer here ?'' " ^Yell, this is primarily an artistic coast; I feel the influence of it; there is a refined beauty in all the lines, and residents have not vulgarized it much. But I wonder what Boston could have done for the Jersey coast ?" In the midst of this high and useless conversation Their I'lhjrinHKjc. 157 tliey came to the Masconomo House, a sort of conces- sion, in this reo-ion of nohle viUas and |irivatc parks, to the po}iuhu- (lesii'c to get to the sea. It is a long, low house, -witli very liroad passages l.ielnw and ahove, which give liglitness and cheerfulness to tlii' interior, and each (_if the four corners of the entrance hall has a fireplace. Hie pillars of the front and f>ack piazzas are pine stems stained, with the natural branches cut in uneipial lengths, and look like the stumps for the bears to climb in the pit at Heme, Set up originallv with the bark on, the worms worked un- derneath it in secret, at a novel sort of decoration, un- til the bark can\e off and exposed the stems must beau- tifully vermiculated, giving the effect of fine carving. Back of the house a meailow slopes dcjwn to a little lieach in a curved fiay that has rockv headlands, and is defended in part by islands of rock. The whole as- pect of the place is peaceful. The hotel ibics not as- sert itself very loudly, and if occasionrdly transient guests appear "with flash manners, they d';> not atfect the general tone of the region. One finds, indeed, nature and social life happily blended, the exclusiveness being rather i>rotective than offensive. The special charm of this piece of coast is that it is bold, much broken and indented, precipices fronting the waves, promontories jutting out, high rocky points commanding extensive views, wild and picturesque, and yet softened by color and graceful shore lines, and the forest comes down to the edge of the sea. And the occupants have heightened rather than lessened this pictnresqueness by adapting their villas to a certain extent to the rocks and inequalities 158 Their Pilgrimage. in color and form, and by means of road';, allees, and vistas transforming the region into a lovely park. Here, as at Newport, is cottage life, but tte contrast of the two places is immense. There is here no at- tempt at any assembly or congregated gayety or dis- play. One would hesitate to say that the drives here have more beauty, but they have more variety. They seem endless, through odorous pine woods and shady lanes, by private roads among beautiful villas and ex- quisite grounds, with evidences everywhere of wealth to be sure, but of individual taste and refinement. How sweet and cool are these wimling ways in the wonderful woods, overrun with vegetation, the bay- berry, the sweet-fern, the wild roses, wood-lilies, and ferns ! and it is ever a fresh surprise at a turn to find one's self so near the sea, and to open out an en- trancing coast view, to emerge upon a promontory and a sight of summer isles, of lighthouses, cottages, villages — Marblehead, Salem, Beverly. What a lovely coast I and how wealth and culture have set their seal on it. It possesses essentially the same character to the north, although the shore is occasionally higher and bolder, as at the picturesque promontory of Magnolia, and Cape Ann exhibits more of the hotel and popular life. But to live in one's own cottage, to choose his calling and dining acquaintances, to make the long season contribute something to cultivation in literature, art, music — to live, in short, rather more for one's self than for society — seems the increasing tendency of the men of fortune who can afford to pay as much for an acre of rock and sand at Manchester as would build a decent house elsewhere. The tourist does not com- Their Pihjriinaijc. 159 plain of this, and is grateful that individuality has ex- pressed itself in the great variety of lonely homes, in cottages vei'V different from those on the Jei'sey coast, showing more invention, and good in form and color. There are New-Yorkers at Manchester, and Bostoni- ans at Newport; hnt «'ho was it that said New York expresses itself at Newjiort, ami Boston at Manchester and kindred coast settlements V This may he only fancy. Where intellectual life keeps pace with the aceumulatiim of wealtli, society is likely to Ijc more natural, simpler, less tied to artificial rules, than where -wealth runs ahead. It happens that the quiet social life of Beverly, Manchester, and that region is delight- ful, although it is a Imme rather than a puhlic life. Nowhere else at dinner and at the chance evening viii- siccde is the foreigner more likely to meet sensible men who are good talkers, hrilliant and witty "women who have the gift of lieing entertaining, and to have the events of the day and the social and political problems more cleverly discussed. What is the good of wealth if it does not bring one back to freedom, and the ability to live naturally and to indulge the finer tastes in va- cation-time V After all. King reflected, as the party were on their way to the Isles of Shoals, what was it that bad most imjiressed him at Manchester ? Was it not an evening spent in a cottage amid the rocks, close by the water, in the company of charming peoiile ? To be sure, there were the magical reflection of the moonlight and the bay, the points of light from the cottages on the rocky shore, the hum and swell of the sea, and all the mysterv of the shadowy headlands; but this was 160 Their Pilgrimage. oiilv a congenial setting for tlie mnsie, the Avitty talk, tlie free play of intellectual badinage and seriousness, and the simple human cordiality that were worth all the rest. What a kaleidoscope it is, this summer travel, and what an entertainment, if the tourist can only keep his "impression plates" fresh to take the new scenes, and not sink into the state of chronic grumbling at hotels and minor discomforts ! An interview at a ticket-office, a whirl of an hour on the rails, and lo ! Portsmouth, anchored yet to the colonial times by a few old houses, and resisting with its resjjectable pro- vincialism the encroachments of modern smartness, and the sleepy wharf in the sleepy harbor, where the little steamer is obligingly waiting for the last passen- ger, for the verj' last woman, running with a bandbox in one hand, and dragging a jerked, fretting child by the other hand, to make the hour's voyage to the Isles of Shoals. (The shrewd reader objects to the bandbox as an anachronism; it is no longer used. If I were writing a novel, instead of a veracious chronicle, I should not have introduced it, for it is an anachronism. But I was powerless, as a mere narrator, to prevent the wom- an coming aboard with her bandbox. Xo one but a trained novelist can make a long-striding, resolute, down-East woman conform to his notions of conduct and fashion.) If a young gentleman were in love, and the object of his adoration were beside him, he could not have chosen a lovelier day nor a prettier scene than this in '>'■" ''M^^. TUE LAST PASSENGER. wliicli to indulge his happiness; and if he were in love, and the object absent, lie could scared}' tind a situa- tion fitter to nurse his tender sentiment. Doubtless there is a stage in love when scenery of the very best quality becomes inoperative. There was a couple on 11 162 Their l*ilgrirnage. board, seated in front of the pilot-house, who let the steamer float along the pretty, long, laud -locked har- bor, past the Kittery Navy-yard, and out upon the blue sea, without taking the least notice of anything but each other. They were on a voyage of their own. Heaven help them! probably without any chart, a voy- age of discovery, just as fresh and surprising as if they were the first who ever took it. It made no difference to them that there was a personally conducted excur- sion party on board, going, they said, to the Oceanic House on Star Island, who had out their maps and guidedoooks and opera-glasses, and wrung the last droj) of the cost of their tickets out of every foot of the seener}-. Perhaps it was to King a more senti- mental journey than to anybody else, because be in- voked his memory and his imagination, and as the love- ly shores opened or fell away behind the steamer in ever-shifting forms of beauty, the scene was in har- mony with both his hope and his longing. As to Marion and the artist, they freely appropriated and enjoyed it. So that medi»val structure, all tower, growing out of the rock, is Stedman's Castle — just like him, to let his art spring out of nature in that way. And that is the famous Kittery Xavy-yard ! "What do they do there, uncle ?" asked the girl, af- ter scanning the place in search of dry-docks and ves- sels and the usual accompaniments of a navy-yard. " Oh, they make 'repairs,' principally just before an election. It is very busy then." " What sort of repairs?" " Why, political repairs; they call them naval in the department. They are always getting appropriations Tluir PilgrhncKjc. 163 for them. I suppose tliat this country Is better otJ: for naval repairs than any otlier country in the world." "And they are done here?" "No; they are done in the department. Here is where the voters are. Yon see, we liave a political navy. It costs about as much as those navies that have ships and gnns, but it is more in accord with the jieaee- ful spirit of the age. Did 3'ou never hear of the lead- ing case of 'repairs' of a government vessel here at Kittery ? The 'repairs' were all done here, at Ports- mouth, New Hampshire; the vessel lay all the time at Portsmouth, Virginia. How should the department know that there were two places of the same name? It usually intends to have 'repairs' and the vessel in the same navy-yard." The steamer was gliding along over smooth water towards the seven blessed isles, which lay there in the sun, masses of rock set in a sea sparkling with diamond j3oints. There were two pretty girls in the pilot-house, and the artist thought their presence tliere accounted for the serene V03'age, for the masts of a wrecked schooner rising out of the shallows to the north re- minded him that this is a dangerous coast. But he said the passengers would have a greater sense of secur- ity if the usual placard (for the benefit of the captain) was put up: "No flirting with the girl at the wheel," At a distance nothing could be more barren than these islands, which Captain John Smith and their native poet have enveloped in a halo of romance, and it was not until the steamer was close to it that any landing-place was visible on Appledore, the largest of the group. 161 Their Pilgrimage The l)oat turned into a pretty little harbor among the rocks, and the settlement was discovered: a long, low, ohl-fashioned hotel with piazzas, and a few cot- tages, perched on the ledges, the door-yards of which were perfectly ablaze with patches of flowers, mass- es of red, yellow, purple — poppies, marigolds, nastur- tiums, bachelor's-buttons, lovely splashes of color against the gray lichen-covered rock. At the landing t\ -- = A MIN-IATUBB HAKBOK. is an interior miniature harbor, walled in, and safe for children to paddle about and sail on in tiny boats. The islands offer scarcely any other o]jportunity for bathing, unless one dare take a plunge off the rocks. Talk of the kaleidoscope ! At a turn of the wrist, as it were, the elements of society had taken a perfectly novel shape here. Was it only a matter of grouping and setting, or were these people different from all Their Pilgrimage. 165 others the tourists had seen '? There was a lively seene in the hotel corridor, the spacious otiice with its long counters and post-office, when the noon mail was opened and the letters called out. So many pretty girls, with pet clogs of all ilegrees of ugliness (dear lit- tle objects of affection overflowing and otherwise run- ning to waste — one of the most piathetic sights in this sad world), jannt_v suits with a nautical cut, for lioat- ing and rock-climljing, family groups, so much anima- tion and excitement over the receipt of letters, so much well-hred chaffing and friemlliness, such an air of re- finement and "style," but withal so homelike. These pei>ple were "guests" of the proprietors, who never- theless felt a sort of proprietorship themselves iu the little island, and -were very much like a company to- gether at sea. For living im this island is not un- like l)eing on shipboard at sea, except that this rock docs ni)t heave about in a nauseous way. Mr. King discovered by the register that the Ben- sons had been here (of all places in the world, he thought this would be the ideal one for a few days with her), and Miss Lament had a letter from Irene, which she did not offer to read. "They didn't stay long," she said, as Mr. King seemed to expect some information out of the letter, " and they have gone on to Bar Harbor. I should like to stoj) here a week; wouldn't 3'ou '?" " Ye-e-s," trying to recall the mood he was in before he looked at the register; "but — but" (thinking of the words "gone on to Bar IIarl)or") "it is a jilace, after all, that you can see iu a short time — go all over it inhalf adaV." 166 Their Pllgnmafje. "But YOU want to sit about on the rocks, and look at the sea, and dream." "I can't dream on an island — not on a small island. It's too cooped up; you get a feeling of lieiug a pris- oner." "I sujjpose YOU Trish 'that little isle had wings, and you and I within its shady — ' " " There's one thing I will not stand, 3Iiss Lamont, and that's Moore. Come, let's go to Star Island." The i)artY went in the tug Pinaf. " 16S Their Pilgrimage. Every tourist goes to the south end of Star Island, and climbs down on the face of the precipice to the " Chair," a itiche where a school-teacher used to sit as long ago as 1848. She was sitting there one day when a wave came up and washed her away into the ocean. She disappeared. But she who loses her life shall save it. That one thoughtless act of hers did more for her reputation than years of faithful teaching, than all her beauty, grace, and attractions. Her " Chair" is a point of pilgrimage. The tourist looks at it, guesses at its height above the water, regards the hungry sea with aversion, re-enacts the drama in his imagination, sits in the chair, has his wife sit in it, has his boy and girl sit in it together, wonders what the teacher's name was, stops at the hotel and asks the photograph girl, who does not know, and the proprietor, who savs it's in a book somewhere, and finally learns that it was Under- bill, end straightway forgets it when he leaves the island. "What a delicious place it is, this Apjiledore, when the elements favor ! The party were lodged in a little cottage, whence they overlooked the hotel and ths little harbor, and could see all the life of the place, looking over the bank of flowers that draped the rocks of the door-yard. How charming was the min- iature pond, with the children sailing round and round, and the girls in pretty costumes bathing, and sunlight lying so warm upon the greenish-gray rocks ! But the night, following the gloiious after-glow, the red sky, all the level sea, and the little harlior burnished gold, the rocks purple — oh ! the night, «'bcn the moon came ! Oh, Irene ! Great heavens ! why Avill this Tlicir Pilgrimage. 169 world fall into such a sentimental fit, when all the sweetness and the lin-lit of it are away at Bar Har- bor ! Love and moonlight, and tlie soft lapse of the waves and singing- ■? Yes, there are girls down hy the land- ing with a Lanjo, and young men singing the songs of love, the modern songs of love dashed \\\X\\ college slang. The lianjo suggests a little fastness; and this new generation carries off its sentiment with some bravado and a mcjcking tone. Presently the tug Pin- afore glides uji to the landing, the engineer flings open the furnace door, and the glowing fire illumines the interior, brings out forms and faces, and deepens the heavy sliado\\-s outside. It is like a cavei-n scene in the opera. A jiarty of ladies in A\hite come down to cross to Star. Some of these insist upon clind^ing up to the narrow deck, to sit on the roof and enjoy the moonlight and the cinders. Girls like to do these things, wliich .-ire more unconventional than hazard- ous, at watering-places. What a T,\"onderful effect it is, the masses of rock, water, sky, the night, all details lost in sim])le lines and forms! On the piazza of the cottage is a group of ladies and gentlemen in poses more or less graceful; one lady is in a hammock; on one side is the moon- light, on the other come gleams from the curtained windows touching here and there a white shoulder, or lighting a lovely head; the vines running up on strings and half enclosing the piazza make an exquisite tra- cery against the sky, and cast delicate sliadow patterns on the floor; all the time music within, the pianci, the violin, and the sweet waves of a w(;man\s voice sing- 170 Their Pilgrimage. ing the songs of Scliubert, floating out upon the night. A soft -n'ind blows out of the west. The northern part of Appledore Ishind is an inter- esting place to wander. There are no trees, but the plateau is far from barren. The gray rocks crop out among bayberry and huckleberry bushes, and the wild rose, very large and brilliant in color, fairly illumi- nates the landscape, massing its great bushes. Amid "A KOOK TO DREAII IN AND MAKE LOVE IN. the chaotic desert of broken rocks farther south are little valleys of deep green grass, gay with roses. On the savage ]irecipices at the end one may sit in view of an extensive sweep of coast with a few hills, and of other rocky islands, sails, and ocean-going steamers. Here arc many nooks and hidden corners to dream in and make love in, the soft sea air being favorable to that soft-hearted occupation. Their Pthji'biiarjc. 171 One Cduld easily yet attaehed ti) tlie plaee, if duty and Irene did not call elsewhere. Tliose avIm' dwell here the year round tind most satist'aetion when the Slimmer tniests have <;-one ami tln'V are alone with freaky iiatnre. "Yes," said the w eonifortahle for winter, kill a eritter, ha\c l>i,i;'s, anil make my own sassi'n^-ers, then there ain't an\" neiijhhors eomin' in, and that's what T like." CHAPTER VII. The attraction of Bar Harbor is in the union of mountain and sea; tlie mountains rise in granite maj- esty riglit out of the ocean. The traveller expects to find a repetition of Mount Athos rising six thousand feet out of the ^Egean. The Bar-IIarljorers made a mistake in killing — if they did kill — the stranger who arriyed at this resort from the mainland, and said it would he an excellent sea-and-mountain place if there were any mountains or any sea in sight. Instead, if they had taken him in a row-boat and pulled him out through the islands, far enough, he would have had a glimpse of the ocean, and if then he had been taken by the cog-railway sev- enteen hundred feet to the top of Green Mountain, he would not only have found himself on firm, rising ground, but he would have been obliged to confess that, with his feet upon a solid mountain of granite, he saw innumeraljlc islands and, at a distance, a con- siderable quantity of ocean. He would have repented his hasty speech. In two days he would have been a partisan of the place, and in a week he would have been an owner of real estate there. There is undeniably a public opinion in Bar Harlior in favor of it, and the visitor would better coincide with it. He is anxiously asked at every turn how he Their PUiji'hnafje. 173 likes it, and if he iloes not like it he is an object of eomjias^icjTi. Countle.ss nuiuhers of people who do not own a foot of land there are de^dtees of the plaee. Any nuiuher of certificates to its (jualities cotdd lie oh- taiiied, as to a patent nieilicine, and they would all read pretty ranch alike, after the well-known for- mula : "The first liottle I took did nie no i^ood, after the second I was W(jrse, after the third I improved, after the twelfth I walked fifty miles in one day; and now I never do without it, I take never less than fift\' bottles a year." So it wouhl l)e : " ^Vt first I felt just as you di>, shut-in j)lace, fog-gy, stayeil oidy two (Lu-s. Only came back again to accompanv friends, stayed a week, fuggy, didn't like it. Can't tell how 1 ha])peneil to come Ijack again, stayed a month, and 1 tell ijoii, there is no place like it in America. S[iend all \\\\ summers here." The genesis of IJar Harbor is curious and instruc- tive. For many years, like other settlements on IMouut Desert Island, it had Ijeeu frequented by people i\ho have more fondness for nature than they have moue}', and who were willing to put up with wretched accom- modations, and enjoyed a mild sort of ''roughing it." But some society people in Xew York, who have the re])Utation of setting the mode, chanced to go there; they declared in favor of it; and instantly, by an oc- cult law which governs fashionable life. Bar Harbor became the fashion. Everybody could see its i)re- eminent attractions. The A\"ord was passed along by the Boudoir Telephone froni Boston to Xcw Orleans, and soon it was a matter of necessity for a dilnitiA>iti_. or a woman of fashion, or a man of the world, or a 174 Their Pilijrimage. blase boy, to sliow tliemselvos there during tlie season. It became the scene of summer romances ; the student of manners ■went there to study the "American girl." The notion spread that it ^vas the finest sanitarium on the continent for flirtations; and as trade is said to follow the flag, so in this case real-estate speculation rioted in the "n^ake of beauty and fashion. There is no doubt that the "American giid " is there, as she is at divers other sea-and-land resorts ; but the present peculiarity of this watering-place is that the American young man is there also. Some philosophers have tried to account for this coincidence by assuming that the American girl is the attraction to the young man. L>ut this seems to me a misunderstanding of the spirit of this generation. "Why are young men c^uoted as " scarce " in other resorts swarming with sweet girls, maidens who have learned the art of being agreeable, and interesting widows in the vanishing shades of an attractive and eonsolable grief? Xo. Is it not rather the cold, luminous truth that the American girl f(jund out that Bar Harbor, without her presence, was for cer- tain reasons, such as unconventionality, a bracmg air, opportunity for boating, etc., agreeable to the youno- man ? But why do elderly people go there ? This question must have been suggested by a foreigner, who is ignorant that in a republic it is the young ones who know what is best for the elders. Our tourists passed a weary, hot day on the coast railway of Maine. Xotwithstanding the high tem- perature, the country seemed cheerless, the sunlight to fall less genially than in more fertile regions to the south, upon a landscape stripped of its forests, naked. Their I'llgrlniage. 175 and unpicturc'sqnc. lYhy should the little "^diitc houses of the pi-dsperous little villao-es on the line of the rail seem cohl and sng-f;-est winter, and the land seem scrimped and without au atmosphere V It chanced so, for e"\'erylKidy knows tliat it is a lovely coast. The artist said it was the ^Maine Law. But that could not be, for the only drunken man encountered on their tour they saw at the Bangor Station, wliere beer was fur- tively sold. They were plunged into a cold hatli on the steamer in the halfdiour's sail from the end of the rail to Bar Harbor. The wind was fresh, wliite-caps enlivened the scene, the s])ray dashed over the Iinge pile of bag- gage on tlie bow, the passengers shivered, and could little enjoy the islands and the picturesque shore, but fixed eyes of hope upon the electric lights "\^hich showed above the headlands, and marked the site of the hotels and the town in the liidden harlior. Spits of rain dashed in their faces, and in some discomfort they came to the wharf, which was alive witli vehicles and tooters for the hotels. In short, with its lights and noise, it had every appearance of being an im- portant place, and when our party, holding on to their seats in a buck-board, were whirled at a gallop np to Rodick's, and ushered into a spacious office swarming with people, they realized that they were entering upon a lively if somewhat hap-hazard 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 vride piazzas for promenade and flir- tatious. ox THE PIAZZA AT KODICK S. 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 everyljody drifts into it first or last. Some say it is an acquired taste; that people do not take to it at first. The big ofiice is a sort of assembly-room, where new arrivals are scanned and discovered, and it is unlilushinglv 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 Their Piliji' image. 177 hotel had no laundry, he was tokl, on applying at the office, that if he would bring his things down there they ■would try to send them out for him. Not heinc; ac- customed to carrying about soiled clothes, he declined this proposal, and consulted a chamliermaid. She tohl him that ladies came to the house e\ery (la\' for llie washing, and that she would speak to one of them. No result following this, after a day King consultdl the proprietor, and asked him point Ijlank, as a friend, what course he would pursue if he were under the ne- cessity of having washing done in that region. The proprietor said that Mr. King's wants should be at- tended to at once. Another day passed without action, when the chamliermaid was again apjilicil to. " There's a lady just come in to the hall I guess will dii it." " Is she trustworthy ?" "Don't know, she washes for the woman in the roimi next to yon." And the lady was at last secured. Somel)ody said that those -^^dio were accustomed to luxury at home liked Rodiek's, and that tliose who were not grumbled. And it was true that fashion for tlie 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 Rodiek's. Bar Harbor has one iif the most dainty and refined little hotels in the world — the Mal- vern. Any one can stay there who is worth two mill- ions of dollars, or can produce a certificate from the 12 178 T/ieir Pilgrimage. Recorder of New York that he is a direct descendant of Heiidrick Hudson or Diedrich Knickerbocker. It is needless to say tliat it was built by a Philadeljthian — that is to say one born with a genius for hotel-keep- ing. But thougli 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, Avith striped jockey cap to match, that did not suggest the penitentiary uniform, because in state-jjrisons the stripes run round. This ri!iglif/ii costume was adhered to even in the ballroom. To be sure, the Ijallroom was little frequented, only an adventurous couple now and then gliding over the tioor, and affordim,'- 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 Weltster, disap- proved of this laxity, and when a couple of young fel- lows in striped array one evening whirleil round the room together, with brier-wood pi]>es in tlicir mouths, she was scandalized. If the young ladies shared her sentiments they made no resolute protests, remember- ing 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 "fish-pond" ISO Thtlr F diji'LincKje. for new arrivals — tbe young ladies angling wliile their mothers and chaperons — how shall we say it to com- jilete the tigiire? — h.eld the Ijait. It is true that they did talk iu 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 youth- ful 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 jieculiarities, and known, most of them, by sobri- quets characteristic of their appearance or pretensions. There was one 5'oung man from the West, wlio would liave 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 IMr. King wanted very much to get him and bring him away in a cage. He had no doubt that he was a fa- vorite 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. Xo, the principal occupation at Bar Harbor was not fishing in the house. It was out-door exercise, inces- sant activity in driving, walking, boating — rowing and sailing — bowling, tennis, and flirtation. There was always an excursion somewhere, by land or sea, water- melon parties, races in the harbor in which the girls took jiart, drives in buck-buards which they organized o 182 Tlieir Pilgrimage. — imleed, the canoe and the buck-board were in con- stant demand. In all this there was a pleasing free- dom — of course under proper chaperonage. And such delightful chaperons as the3' were, their business being to promote and not to hinder the intercourse of the sexes ! This activit}', 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, tlie atmosphere is pure and elastic and stimulat- ing, 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 jiarty to petty subterfuges for evading the law. And the wretched man adds to the misdemeanor of this eva- sion the moral crime of consuming bad liquor. " Evervljody " was at Bar Harbor, or would l)e there in course of the season. Mrs. Cortlandt was there, and Mrs. Pendragon of Xew Orleans, one of the most brilliant, amiable, and charming of women. I re- member her as far back as the seventies. A voung 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, !:;ood-tera- Their Pilgrimcujr. 183 pcrftl, ami well-bred! And there were tlie Aslileys — elever niotLor and three daugliter, nu.-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 Sleiderlieifers and Mulligrubs of New Jersey, were there for the season, some of them in cottages. These families are intimate, even con- nected by mai'riage, with the Bayardiers of South Carolina and the Lontoons of Louisiana. The girls are handsome, dashing women, wathout much informa- tion, but rattling talkers, and so exclusive! and the young men, with a Piccadilly air, fancy that they be- long to the " Prince of Wales set," you know. There is a good deal of monarchical simplicity in our hetero- genous society. Mrs. C'ortlandt was cpiite in her element here as di- rector-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 ar- rival. "Kitty Van Sanford spied you last night, and exclaimeil, ' There, now, is a real reinforcement !' You see that you are mortgaged already." " It's very kind of you to expect me. Is there any- liody else here I know?" " Several hundreds, I shoiild say. If you cannot find friends here, you are a subject for an orphan- asylum. And you have not seen anybody V" " 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 18i Their Pilgrimage. to look as if yon diil not know that Irene Benson is in the house. I didn't tliink, 3Ir. King-, it had gone that far — indeed I didn't. You know I'm in a manner re- sponsible for it. And I heard all about you at New- jiort. She's a heart of gold, that girl." '• Did she — did Miss Benson saj anything about Xewjiort V" '• Xo. '^Vhy ■?" ■' 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 dill. 3Irs. 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. lie is a rich wirlower, 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 travelled 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 i)ccu])ation enough '? "Well, he has a libraiy and a little arclia;ological museum, and ]irints monographs on art now anil then. If he were a Xew- Yorker, you kmiw, he would have a yacht instead of a librarv. There thev are now.'' Tlicir PUgriinage. 185 A ean-iage witli a pair of spirited horses stood at the Ijottoni of the steps on the entrance side. Mrs. Cort- landt and King turned tlie corner of the piazza and walked that way. On the hack seat were ]Mi-s. IJen- serfect nmnnei's; he kiiows 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 lie been here?" " 8evej-al days. They hap])ened to come up fnnn the Isles of Shoals together. lie is somehow related to the Simjikinses. There! I've wasted time enough on you. I must go and see IMrs. Pendragon alxiut a watermelon party to Jordan Pond. You'll see, I'll ar- range something." King had no idea what a watermelon party was, but he was jdcased to think that it was just the sort of thing that Mr. Meigs would shine in. lie said to him- self that lie hated dilettante snobs. His bitter reflec- 186 Their Pilgrimage. tions were interrupted by tlie appearance of Miss La- moiit and tlie artist, and ^vith them Mr. Benson. The men shook hands witli downriglit heartiness. Here is a genuine man, King was thinking. " Yes. "We are still at it," he said, with his humor- ous air of resignation. " I tell my wife that I'm he- srinniutr to understand how old Christian felt goinw through Vanity Fair. We ought to lie pjretty 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 cpieer how different the world looks to women." " And how does it look to men '?" asked Miss La- mont. " Well, my dear yonng lady, it looks like a good deal of fuss, and tolerably large bills." '' But what does it matter aboitt the bills if you en- joy yourself ?" '■ That's just it. Folks work harder to enjoy them- selves 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 ]u-etty 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 pos- TJuir PUijfhniuje. 187 sessod to stick a foreign name on to overvtliing. And the road round tlirougli tlie scrub to Eagk' Lake tliey call Norway. If Norway is like that, it's |n-cttv sliort of timber. If there hadn't been so much lumbering here, I should like it l)etter. There is li.ardU- a ileeent [line -tree left. 3Ir. ISIeigs — they ha\-e ^i.ue riding with Mr. ]\[eigs — says the IMaine governnu'Ut (junlit to lia\e a Maine law that amounts to something — one that will jiruteot the forests, and start up some frees (ui tlio coast." " Is Ml'. Meigs in tlu' lumber Imsiness ?" asked King. " Only for scenery, I guess. lie is great (jii scenery. He's a Uoston man. I tt'll the women that he rs what I call a liric-er-brac man. I>ut you cume to set ri^ht doA\n with liim, away fnuii women, and he talks just as sensible as aii^'body. He is shrewd enough. It l)eats all how men are with men and with wduien." ]\[i'. Inaison was ca|iable of g-oing on in this AAa\- all day. Ibit the artist proposed a walk up ti^ Newport, and jMr. King getting ^Irs. Pendragon to accompany them, the party set out. It is a very agreeable climb up Newjxirt, and not ditfieult; but if the sun is out, one feels, after scrambling over the rocks and walking home by the dusty road, like taking a long jiull at a cu]i of shandygaff. The mountain is a. solid mass of granite, liare on top, and commands a noble \'iew of islands and ocean, of tlie gorge sejiai^.-itiug it from Green ^[ouutain, and of that respectable hill. For this reason, because it is some two or three humlred feet lower than Green Alountain, and includes that scarred eminence in its view, it is the most picturesque and CLIMBING UP NEWPORT. pleasing elevation on tlie islaml. It also has the recom- mendation 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 Their Pil'jriinage. 189 Bar Hnrlior has to see the ocean is moderately grati- fied. The prospect is at once nol>le and poetic. Mrs. Peiidration informed Mr. King- that lie and jMiss Lament and Mr. Forbes were inelndeil in the water- melon party that was to start that afternoon at live o'clock. The plan was for the party to <^o in buck- boards to Eagle Lake, cross that in the steamer, scram- ble on foot over the " carry " to Jordan Pond, take row-boats to the foot of that, and find at a farndiouse A BXU H.VUBOK BUCKBOAED. there the watermelons and other refresliments, which would be sent by the shorter road, and then all re- turn hj moonlight in the buck-boards. 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 buck-boards were loaded with their merry freight. At the last Mrs. Pendragon pleaded a head- 190 Th<:lr Plhjrimage. afhe, and could not go. 3Ir. King was wandering about among tlie buck-boards to find an eligible seat. He was not put in good-liumor 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. 3Ieigs was to come back and take a seat with ]Mrs. Simpkins in the buck-board 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 exactlv what had haiiviened, Mr. King- was befrtrincr her pardon for the change, and seating himself beside her. And he was thinking, "What a confoundedly clever woman Mrs. Cortlandt is I" There is an informality about a buck-lioard that communicates itself at once to conduct. The exhila- ration of the long spring-board, the necessity of hold- ing 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 liimself and their meeting merelv as accidents. Their PUgr image. 191 "The Amoricaii yciutli seem to have imciitcil a novel way of disposing of ehaperons," he saiil. "To send them in one direetion and tlie party clia])eroned in another is eertainlv originaL" "I'm not sure tlic ehajieiims like it. And I douht if it is proper to paek them oft l>y themselves, esj)eeiallv ^^hen one is a widow and the other is a Avidower." " It's a case of chaperon eat ehapei'on. I hope yniir friend didn't mind it. I hail nearly despaiix-d nt he is the most obliging of men." "I su]>pose you have pretty well seen the island?" " We have driven about a good deal. We have seen -;--~rT— V53?^ 1 ~_=^^^^ta^ INDIAN VILLAGE, BAR HARBOR. 192 Their Pilgrimage. Soutliwest 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 sitppose you have been up Green Mountain?" "Xo. 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 sup- pose 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 Dnsen wants to know why Maud S. is like a salamander ?" "He is not to be gratified, Marion. If it is conun- drums, I shall get out and walk." Before the conundrum was guessed, the volatile Van Duseu broke out into, " Here's a how d'e dol" One of the Ashlev girls in the next wagon caught up the word with, "Here's a state of things!" and the two buck-boards 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 hap- pened 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. Jlr. Van Duseu says he keep.? his apartments in whatever street it is off Piccadilly, it's so much more convenient." Their Pihjrimage. 193 On the steamer crossing tlie lake, King liojied for an opportunity to make an explanation to Irene. ]>ut when the opportunity eame lie I'ound it very ililHcult to tell what it was he wanted to explain, ami su Idun- dered on in commonplaces. "You like IJai- Harboi- so well," he said, "(liat I supiiose your father will he liuying a cottage here V" "Hardly. Mr. J\feigs" (King thought then" was too much Meigs in the conversation) " saiil iliat he had once thought of doing so, hut he likes the jilace too well for that, lie prefers to come here voluiil arily. The trouhle ahimt owning a cottage at a walei'ing- place is that it makes a duty i>f a jileasure. You can always rent, father says. He has noticed that u^uallv when a person gets comfortahly establisheil in a sum- mer cottage he wants to rent it." "And you like it better than Xewport y" "On some accounts — the air, you know, and — " "I want to tell you," he sank l)reaking in most il- logieally — "I want to tell you, !Miss I]enson, that it was all a wretched mistake at Newport that nniniing. I don't suppose you care, but I'm afraid you are not wly. " You couhhrt li^jp it. AVe can't any of us help it. AVe cannot ma! e the world over, yon know." And she looked up at hiui with a faint little smile. " But you didn't understant appear, and I can well believe that Irene and Stanhope would have manv a tuniuituons passage in the passionate symphony of their lives. But, great hca^-ens, is the ideal marriage a Holland ! If Marion had shed any tears overnight, say on ac- count of a little lonesomeness because her friend was speeding away from lier southward, there were no traces of them when she met her uncle at the lireak- fast-table, as bright and chatty as usual, and in as high sjiirits 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 coni])anion 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 skj' of morning, and against it the spires of Philadelphia. At ten o'clock the two friends were breakfasting- comfortabily in the car, and running along down the Cumberland Valley. 204 Their Pilgrimage. What a contrast was this rich country, warm with color and suggestive of ahundance, to the pale and scrimped coast land of Maine denuded of its trees ! By afternoon the}' were far down the east valley of the Shenandoah, between the Blue Ridge and the Mas- sanutten range, in a country broken, picturesque, fer- tile, 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 thunder-storm, they came to Natural Bridge station, where a coach awaited them. This was old ground to King, who had been tell- ing the artist that the two natural objects east of the Rocky Mountains that he thought entitled to the epithet "sublime" were Niagata Falls and the Nat- ural 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 princeh^ domain into a grand park, it has become a favorite summer resort. The gorge of the Bridge is a botanical store- house, 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 pro- prietor has shown a skill and taste in dealing with natural resources, both in regard to form and the de- velopment of contrasts of color in foliage, which are Their Pilgrimage. 205 rare in landscape cjanlening on this side of the Atlan- tic. Here is the highest part of the Blue Ridge, and from the gentle summit of Mount Jefferson the spec- tator has in view a hundred miles of this remarkable range, this ribbed lUduutaiu structure, which always wears a mantle of beauty, changeable pur|ih' and violet. After supper there was an illumination of the cas- cade, and the ancient gnarled arbor-vitie trees that lean over it — perhaps the largest known specimens of this species — of the gorge and tlie Bridge. Nature is apt to be belittled by this sort of display, but the no- ble dignity of the vast arch of stone was superior to this trifling, and even had a sort of mystery adiled to its imposing grandeur. It is true that the flaming bonfires and the coloreci lights and the tiny figures of men and women standing in the gorge within the depth of tlie arch made the scene theatrical, fiut it was strange and weird aud awful, like the fantasy of a Walpurgis' Night or a midnight revel in Faust. The presence of the colored lirother in force dis- tinguished 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 dining- room, 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 twaug 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 KEGRO WAITER. of an orchestra. Man}- of tliem, besides, have the ex- pression of class-leaders — of a worldly sort. There were the aristocratic chamber-maid and porter, who had the air of never haviiio- waited on any Imt the first families. And what clever flatterers and readers of human nature ! They can tell in a moment whether a man will Ije complimented liy the remark, " I tuk vou for a Richmond gemman, never sho'd have know'd you was frum de Norf,"' or whether it is best to say, " We depen's on de gemmen frum dc Norf ; folks down hyer never gives noffin; is too pore." But to a Richmond man it is always, '' Tlie Yankee is mighty keerful of his money; we depen's on the old sort, marse." A fine specimen of the " Richmond darkey" Their Plhjrlmcuje. 207 of tlie old school — polite, flattering, with a venerahlo head of gray wool, was the l.>artender, who mixed his juleps with a flourish as if keeping time t<> musie. "Haven't I waited o\\ you befo', sah ? At C'ai)Oii Springs? Soi-ry, sah, hut tho't I knowi'd you when you eiiiue in. Sorry, liut glad to know you now, sah. If that julep don't suit you, sah, throw it in my face." "iia-^-en't I wArrED on tou befo', sah?' A friendly, restful, famil_y sort of place, with music, a little mild dancing, mostly performed by chihlren, in the pavilion, driving and riding — in short, peace in the midst of noltle scenery. No display of fasliion, the artist soon discovered, and he said he longed to give the pretty girls some instruction in the art of dress. 208 Their Pilgrimage. 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-Jressed woman wouLl spoil the finest landscape. For such a man, with an artistic feeling so sensitive, the White Suljihur 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 connec- tions, permit. " What do you think of a place," he wrote Miss La- ment — 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 chamjjagne supper at twelve, get to your <:piarters 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 liarracks, which were neat but exceed- ingly 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 neces- sary 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 stran- gers had the impression of having drojijied into a gar- rison 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 diunitv, and so diflferent from anv in his ex- Their PlUjr'nnnge. 209 j>erience, tliat he was aware tliat lie Iiad come u|ion an original development of watering-place life. The White Sulphur has l)een for the lietter ]iait of a century, as OA'crybody knows, the typical Southern resort, the rendezvous of all that was most character- istic in tlie society of the whole South, the nicctin<4-- place of its politicians, the hauiit of its belles, the arena of gayety, intrigue, and fashion. If tradition is to be believed, here in years gone liy were concocted the measures that were subsequcnth' deployed for the governinent of the country at AVashington, here his- toric matches were made, here beanty had trinmphs that were the talk of a generation, here hearts were broken at a ball and mendelace in the (hiys 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, jour- neys 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 stmiewhat in the nature of a picnic, it had its very well dctined and ceremonious code of etiquette. In the memory of its old fiahitues 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 oc- 14 210 Tlicir Pilrjr image. cupants. The Soutliern 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 beau- tiful and attractive as it is to-day, 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 Septem- ber 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 pil- lars 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 doM-n to the spring, wdiich is surmounted by a round canopy on white columns, and below is an opening across the stream to the race-track, the ser- vants' quarters, and a fine view of recedinn' hills. Three sides of this charming park are enclosed bv the cottages and cabins, which liack against the hills, and Their Pilgrimage. 211 are more or less embo-n^ered in trees. Most of these cottages are built in bloeks and rows, some single rooms, otliers large enough to aecommodate a family, but all reached hy flights of steps, all with verandas, and most of them connected by galleries. Occasion- ally the forest trees have been left, and the galleries built around them. Included in the premises are two churches, a gamblingdiouse, a couple of country stores, and a post-ofHce. There are none of the shops com- mon at watering-places for the sale of fancy articles, and, strange to say, flowers are not systematically cul- tivated, 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 ball-room, and a draw- ing-room of imposing dimensions. Hotel and cottages together, it is said, can lodge fifteen humlred guests. The natural beauty of the place is very great, and fortunately there is not much smart and fantastic ar- chitecture to interfere with it. I cannot say whether the knowledge that Irene was in one of the cottages afl^ected King's judgment, but that morning, when he strolled to the upper part of the grounds before break- fast, he thought he had never beheld a scene of more beauty and dignity, as he loolced over the ma.ss of hotel buildings, ujjon the park set with a wonderful variety of dark green foliage, upon the elevated rows of gallericd 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 jilace seemed to him ravishingly beautiful. King was always raving about the "White Sulphur 212 Their Pilgrimage. after he came Xorth, and one never eould tell bow much his judgment was colored by his peculiar expe- riences there. It was my impression that if lie had sjient those two weeks on a l>arren 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 pjosi- tion. Before dinner-time he knew half a hundred; in the evening his introductions had run up into the hun- dreds, and he felt that he had potential friends in ev- ery Southern city; and before the week was over there was not one of the thousand guests he diil not know or might not know. At his table he heard Irene spo- ken 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 readjr 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 jjrotect it- self. It was not without a little shock that King heard the good points, the style, the physical perfec- tions, of Irene so fully commented on, and not with- out some alarm that he heard predicted for her a verv successful career as a belle. Their PUijrhnaije. 213 Comin;;- out froTii lireakfast, the Benson party were encountered on tlie gallery, and introductions fol- lowed. 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 in- vitatitin. There was in the civility i:)f Mr. Meigs no sign of an invitation. Mrs. Benson said she was never so surprised in her life, and the surjirise seeuuMl not e-xactlyr an agreeable one, hut Mr. Benson looked a great deal more pleased than astonisheil. The slight flush in Irene's face as she greeted him might have been wholly due to the unexpecterbiess of the meet- ing. 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 jiarty strolled doMii to the benches under the trees. "So Miss Benson was expecting you!" said j\[rs. Farquhar, who was walking with King. It is enough to mention Mrs. Farquhar's name to an liahitue of the Springs. It is not so many years ago since she was a reigning belle, and as noteil for her wit and sparkling raillery as for her l)cauty. She was still a very hand- some wf this resort \A"ere in his favor. If I can- not win her here, he was saying to himself, the Meigs is in it. They talked about tlie journey, al)out Luray, where slie luid been, and about the Bridge, and the abnormal gayety of the S])rings. "The people are all sti friendly," she said, "and strive so much to put the stranger at liis ease, and putting themselves out lest time hang heax'v on ime':. hands. They seem somehow res])onsible." "Yes," said King, "the jilace is unique in that re- spect. I sup)pose it is partly o-\\ing to the concentra- tion of the company in and around the hotel." " But the Sole object appears to me to l)e agreeable, and make a real social life. At other like places no- body seems to care wliat becomes of anylmdy else." " Doubtless the cordiality and good feeling are spon- taneous, though something is due to manner, and a habit of expressing tlie feeling that arises. Jstill, 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. 218 Their Pilgrimage. But ■we do not go to a summer resort to iihilosopliizc. A market is a market, you know." " I don't know anything about markets, and this c-or- diality may all be on the surface, but it makes life yery agreeable, and I wish our Northerners would catch the Southern habit of showing sj-mpathy where it exists." " Well, I'm free to say that I like the place, and all its easy-going ways, and I haye to thank you for a new experience." " 3Ie ? AYhy 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 haye seryed you as a guide-liook." " And I hope you are not sorry that I — " At this moment Mrs. Benson and Mr. Meigs came down witli the announcement of the dinner hour, and the latter marched off with the ladies with a " oue-of- tlie-f amily " air. The party did not meet again till eyening in the great drawing-room. The business at the Wliite Sul- phur is pleasure. And this is about the order of pro- ceedings : 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 Ijreakfast; 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 eyery other morning at eleyen; wine-parties under the trees; morning calls at the cottages; seryants running hither ami thither with cooling drinks; the liar-room *ti FLIRTATION ON THE LAWN. not absolutely i-lesei'ted ami cheerless at any Ikuu', day or night; dinner from two ti:i four; occasionally a rid- iug-party ; some driving ; though there were charming drives in every direction, few private carriages, and no display of turn-onts; strolls in Lovers' Walk and in the pretty hill paths; snpper at eight, and then the full-dress assemldy in the drawing-room, and a " walk around " while the children have their hour in the hall- room; the nightly dance, witnessed by a crowd on the veranda, followed frequently by a private german and 220 Their Pilgrimage. a supper given by some lover of his kind, lasting till all hours in the morning; ami while the majority of the vast encampment reposes in slumber, some reso- lute spirits are fighting the tiger, and a light gleaming from one cottage and another shows where devotees of science are backing their opiinion of the relative value of chance liits of pasteboard, in certain combina- tions, with a liberality and faith for which the world gives them no credit. And lest their life should be- come monotonous, the enterprising young men are con- tinually organizing entertainments, mock races, comi- cal 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 re- maining 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 daj's. Everybody is in the diawing-room in the even- ing, 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 cice- rone. Between the rim of people near the walls and the elliptical centre was an open space for promenad- ing, 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 comedv in it. It was an education to join a wall group and hear Tlielr PUijrbnacje. 221 the free and critical comments on the style, the dress, the jiliysical perfection, of the charming ])rocession. When Mrs. Farquhar and King had taken a turn or two, they stood on one side tu enjoy the scene. "Did you ever see so many pretty girls together before V If you did, don't ynu dare say .so." " But at the North the pretty Avomen are scattered in a thousand ])laces. You have here the whole South to draw on. Are they elected as representatives from the various districts, Mrs. Faripihar'?" " Certainly. By an election that your clumsy de- vice of the ballot is not equal to. Why .shouldn't beautj^ 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 — j'ou 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's seems to me rather a melancholy historj'.'' " Well, she is a most charming old lady; just as en- tertaining ! I must introduce you. But this /.< his- tory. 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 vi- vacity ! 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 rouiul; she carries it well, too — belle of Rich- 223 Their Pilgrimage. mond. And, see there; there's one of the prettiest girls in the South — belle of Macon. And that hand- some woman — Nashville? — Louisville? See, that's the new-comer from Ohio." And so the procession %?ent on, and the enumeration — belle of Montgomery, belle of Augusta, belle of Charleston, belle of Savan- nah, belle of Atlanta — always the belle of some place. " No, I don't expect you to say that these are pret- tier 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 some- thing 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 be- fore. 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 wom- en, and whether this or that one is well made and hand- some." " "Well, suppose beauty is worshipped 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." Their I'ilgrirnage. 223 " That's the ruasou I took him awaj' this morn- ing." " Thank you." "He is full of infor- mation, and so unolitru- sive — " " I hadn't noticed that." "And I think he ouglit to be eneouraned. Til tell you -«hat you ought to do, Mr. King ; you ought to give a gerrnan. If you do not, I shall ])ut Mr. Meigs up to it — it is the thing to do here.'' "Mr. IMeigs give a ger- rnan!" " Why not ? Y(.iu see that old beau there, the one smiling and l.iending towards her as he walks with the belle of Macon '? He does not Imik any older than Mr. Meigs. He has been coming here for fifty years; he owns up to si.\- ty-five and the Mexican war ; it's my firm belief that he was out in 1812. Well, he has led the gernian here for years. You will find Colonel Fane in the ball-room every night. Yes, I shall speak to Mr. Meigs." The room ^l•as thinning out. King found himself in front of a row of dowagers, whose tongues were still going about the departing beauties. " Xo mercy COLONEL F.\XE, 224 Their Fihjrimage. there," he heard a lad_y say to her companion; " that's a jnrj' for conviction every time." What confidential communication Mrs. Farquhar made to 3Ir. Meigs, King ne^er knew, but he took advantage of the diver- sion in his favor to lead Miss Benson off to the ball CHAPTER IX. The (lays went liy at- the White Sulpbur on the wings 1)1' incessant yayety. Literally the nights were filled with music, and the only cares that infested the day apjieared in the anxious faces of the nnjthers as WMJ\' );1- '. 'THE ANXIOrs FACES OF THE .MOTHERS. 15 226 Their Pilgrimage. the campaign became more intricate and uncertain. King watched this with the double interest of spec- tator 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 con- fessed 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. Everj^ morning the mammies and nurses with their charges were seated in a long, shin- ing row on a pjart 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 cliildren in her charge. High-toned conversa- tion on these topics occupied these dignified and faith- ful mammies, upon whom seemed to rest to a consider- able extent the maintenance of the aristocratic social traditions. Forbes had heard that w-hile the colored people of the South had suspended several of the ten commandments, the eighth was especially regarded as non-applicable 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 hair- pin or a cigar. This fashion of ti'ust and of honesty 22S Their Pilgrimage. so impressed the artist that he said he should make an attempt to have it introduced elsewliere. This sort of esjjrit de coqis among the colored people was unex- pected, and he wondered if they are not generally mis- understood hy 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 simjjlicity. Forlies couliln'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?" " Wli}', of course we have cotton." "Well " (the girl only wanted an excuse to say something), "I only ast, is you'?" Sports of a colonial ami old English flavor that have fallen into disuse elsewhere varieil 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 exhiliition 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 Ama- zon base-ball nines, the one nine ari-aved in vellow cambric frocks and sun-Tjounets, and the other in bright red gowns — the whiskers and liig boots and trousers adding nothing whatever to the illusion of the female battle. The two tables. King's and the Bensons', united in an expjedition to the Old Sweet, a drive of eighteen miles. Mrs. Far(iuliar arranged the affair, and assigned the seats in the carriages. It is a very jiicturesque drive, Their Pilgrimage. 229 as arc all tlio drives in this region, and if King did not enjoy it, it was not becanse Mrs. l''arqnliar was not even more entertaining than nsnal. The ti'uth is tliat a young man in love is |ioor eomjiaiiy for himself and for everyhody else. Even the oliject of his pas- sion couhl ni.jt tolerate him unless she returned it. Irene and 'Sir. 3Ieig^ rode in the earriage in advance of his, and King thought the scenery ahoiit the tamest he liail ever seen, the roads bad, the horses slow. His ill- humor, however, ^xas concentrated on one sjiot ; that was Mr. Meigs's Ijack; he thought he had neAcr seen a more disagi'eeahle hack, a mcire conceited hack. It ought to have l^een a delightful dav; in his imag- ination it was to he an eventful day. Indeed, why shouldn't the ojiportunity come at the Old .Sweet, at the end of the drive 'i — there was something jiromising in the name. Mrs. Farquhar was in a mocking mood all the way. She liked to g the spring with Irene, the two sanntered along, and nneonscionsly, as it seeTned, turned up the hill into that winding jiath •\vliieh has ])een trodden by generations of lovers nith loitering steps — steps easy to take anathy is with Mr. Meigs, who never did either 240 Their Pilgrimaye. of you any harm, and I think has been very badly treated." "I don't know any one, ]\Irs. Farquhar, -who is so capable of rejjairing his injuries as yourself," said King. "Thank you; I'm not used to sucli delicate elephan- tine 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, where\-er we are; and we will try ti:i make the Xorth tolerable fijr you." " Oh, I shall hide my pride and go. If you were not all so rich up there ! Xot 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' " I supjjose there never was such a journev as that from the White Sulphur to Xew York. If the Vir- ginia scenery had seemed to King beautiful when he came, down, it was now transcendently iovelv. lie raved about it, when I saw him afterwards — the Blue Ridge, the wheat valleys, tlie commercial advantages, the mineral resources of the state, the grand old tra- ditional 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 mv opinion that the most custly scenery in the world is thrown away upon a jjair of ne\\-ly plighted lovers. The rest of the party vere in good spirits. Even Mrs. Benson, who was at first a little bewildered at the Tlieir Pilgrimage. 241 failure of her a(lniiral)ly i)laniicd canipaiirii, acce]ited the situation with noreuity. "So you arc ony-agril !" she said, when Irene went to her witli the story of the llttk' affair in Lovers' Walk. "I snji])Ose he'll like it. lie always took a fane\- to Mr. King-. N(.), I haven't any olijeetions, Irene, ami I hope you'll he ha]ij)y. ^fr. King was always ver\- po- lite to ine — only he didn't ne^•er seem exactly like "ur folks. AVe only want you to l)e ha]ipy." And the old lady declared Avith a shaky voice, and tears streaming down her cheeks, that she was jierfeetly ha]ijiv if Iiene was. Mr. IMeigs, the refined, the fastidious, the man of the world, who had known how to ada])t himself jiei'fectly to Mrs. Benson, might nevertheless have been surpi-ised at her implication that he was "like our folks." At the station in Jersey City — a ]ilacc suggestive of love and ronumce and full of tendei' associations — the party separated for a few days, the Rensons going to Saratoga, and King accompanying F(Jid)es to Long ]]raneh, in pursuance of an agreement which, not lieing ill writing, he was unahle to hreak. As the two friends went in the early morning doA\'n to the coast over the level salt meadows, cut Iiy l)ayous anrl 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 land- scape, 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 Avere planned for Kew York excursionists who are content with the ocean and 16 24-2 Their Pilyrimage. the salt air, and do not care mncli for the picturesque. It can be described in a plirase: a straiglit line of sandy coast ^^-itll a high bank, parallel to it a driveway, and an endless row of hotels and cottages. Knowing what the American sea-side cottage and hotel are, it is un- necessary to go to Long Branch to have an accurate pict- ure of it in the mind. Seen from the end of the pier, the coast appears to be all Iniilt 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 V)est post of observation, a medium jjoint of re- spectability lietween the excursion medley of one ex- tremity 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 ad- mired than their fashionable race-course manners. The satirist who said that Atlantic City is typical of Phila- delphia, said also that Long Branch is typical of Xew 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 char- acter, but it is not easy always to say how it is pro- duced. The Long Branch region was the resort of politicians, and of persons of some fortune who con- nect politics with speculation. Society, which in America does not identify itself with politics as it does in England, was not specially attracted by the news- paper notoriety of the place, although fashion to some extent declared in favor of Elberon. n AT THE RACES. Ill tlie morning the artist went up to tlie pier at the batliing liour. Thousands of men, women, and chil- dren v,ere tossing about in the lively surf promiscuous- ly, revealing to the spectators such forms as Xature had given them, with a modest confidence in her handi- work. It seemed to the artist, who was a student of the human figure, that many of these pei>j)Ie would not have bathed in public if Nature hail made them 244 Their Pilgrimage. self-conscious. All down tlie shore were pavilions and batli-houses, and the scene at a distance was not unlike that when the water is occu^jied 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 holi- days rather seriously, and offer little of interest to an artist. The boats that arrive at night are sairl to lirinar 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 l:ie a dozen yachts in the offing. Such elegance as this water- ing-place has lies in this direction; the Elberon is a re- fined sort of hotel, and has near it a group of pretty cottages, not too fantastic for holiday residences, and rz- A DRIVE TO ELBERON. Their Plliji'limujc. 245 even the " greeny-yellowy " ones do not niueli (iffend, for eeeentrieities of color are toued down by the sea atmosphere. These cottages have excellent lawns set with lirilliant beds uf flowers, and the turf rivals that of Newport; but without a tree or shrub anyvv'here along the shore the aspect is too unrelieved and photographi- cally distinct. Here as elsewhere the cottage life is taking the place of hotel life. Tliere were few handsome tnrnouts on the nwin drive, and perhaps the popnlar character of the place was indicated by the nse of omnibnses instead , the place is not gay. The peo})le come here to eat, to bathe, to take the air; and these are reasons enough for being here. TTpou the artist, alert for social peculiarities, the scene made little impression, for to an artist there is a limit to the intei'est of a crowd showilv dressed, though the}" blaze with diamonds. It was in search of something different fron: this that King and Forbes took the train and travelled six miles to Asbnry Park and Ocean C4ro\'e. These great summer settlements are separated by a sheet of fresh water three quarters of a mile long; its sloj^ing banks are studded with pretty cottages, its surface is alive witlr boats gay with awnings of red and blue and green. •2J:6 Their I'ilgrlmaye. and seats of motley color, and is altogether a fairy spec- tacle. 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-meet- ing 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-raile- loDg plank promenade by the sea. Perhajis 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 sujjplj'ing the wants of the relig- ious pilgrims, and used as he might be to the promiscu- ous bathing along our coast, he would inevitably com- ment upon tJae freedom existing here. He would see women in their bathing dresses, wet and clinging, walk- ing in the streets of the town, and he would read no- tices posted up by the camp-meeting authorities for- bidding women so clad to come upon the tabernacle ground. lie would also read placards along the beach explaining the reason why decency in bathing suits is desirable, and he would ^^-onder -n-liy such ncitices should be necessary. If, h(jwever, 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 Euro])e has no parallel for. A jieculiar custom here is sand-burrowing. To lie in the wami sand, which accommodates itself to any position of the body, and listen to the dash of the waves, is a "^ -.-■^s. 'sj' "-i <ecause it is a public exhibition. A coujile in bathing suits take a dip to- gether iu the sea, and then lie down in the sand. The artist proposed to make a sketch of one of these jirimi- tive 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 pitv, because art is never more agreeable than ^^hen it con- cerns itself with domestic life. TThile this charming spectacle was exhibited at the beach, afternoon service was going on in the taber- nacle, and King sought that in preference. The vast audience under the canopy directed its eyes to a man on the pdatform, who was violently gesticulating and shouting at the top of his voice. King, fresh from the scenes of the beach, listened a long time, expectino- to hear some close counsel on the conduct of life, but he heard nothing except the vaguest emotional exhorta- tion. By this the audience were apparently unmoved, for it was only when the preacher paused to o-et his breath on some word on which he could dwell bv rea- son 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 2'hcir Pilgrimage. 249 demonstration, and it arouseil more response. The iifKeiating minister, kneeling at the desk, gesticulated i'uriouslr, doul)led np his fists and shook tliem on high, stretched out Ijoth arms, and pounded the pulpit. ^Vnioni;' peojile of his own race King had never hefore seen anything like this, and he went away a sadder if not a wiser man, having at least learned one lesson of char- it v — never again to speak lightly of a negro j-eligious meeting. This vast city of the sea has many charms, and is the resort of thousands of people, who find here healtli and repose. But King, who was immensely interested in it all as one phase of American summer life,, was triad that Irene was not at Ocean Grove. CHAPTER XI. It Vi-SLS 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. Tliey 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 docs not depend upon its decrees; it has reached the pioint 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 shop- ping period. It was race week, but the sportino- men did not is;iye 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 Jeru- salem. Innumerable boarding-houses swarmed with city and country clergymen, who have a well-founded impression that the waters of the springs have a lienefi- cent relation to the bilious secretions of the year, but TJieir Pilgrimage. 251 the resort liad not an oppressive air of sanctity. Near- ly every prominent imlitieian in the state and a good many from other states registered at tlie liotels, Init no one seemed to tliink tliat the eountrv was in danger. Ilnndreds of men and -women M'ere there because tliey had heen there every year for thirty or forty years back, and they liave no donbt tliat tlieir liealtli abso- lutely requires a week at Saratoga; yet the village has not the aspect of a sanitarium. Tiie liotel dining-rooms and galleries were thronged witli large, ovei'dressed women y\\w glittered with diamonds and looked un- comfortal)le in silks and velvets, and Broadway was gay with elegant eageant. Paying their entrance, and passing through tlie turn- stile in the pretty pavilion gate, they stood in the Con- gress Spring Park. The hand was playing in the kiosk; the deu' still lay on the flowers and the green turf; the miniature lake sparkled in the sun. It is one i>f the most pleasing artificial scenes in the world; to he sure, nature set the great pine-trees on the hills, and made the graceful little valley, hut art and exquisite taste have increased the apparent size of the small plot of ground, and filled it with heauty. It is a gem of a place with a character of its own, although its pretti- ness suggests some foreign Spa. Groups of people, having taken the water, were strolling about the grav- elled 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 Suljjhur?" said Mrs. Glow. " IIow did you like it ?" " Immensely. It's the only place left where there is a congregate social life." " You mean provincial life. Everybody knows everj-- body else." " Well, King retorted, with some spirit, " it is not a 254 Their Pilgrimage. place where people pretend not to know each other, as if their salvation depended on it." "Oh, I sec; hospitable, frank, cordial — all that. Stanhope, do you know, I think you are a little de- moralized this summer. Did yi:)u fall in love with a Southern belle? ^Vho was there?" " "SVell, all the South, pretty much. I didn't fall in love with all the lielles; 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 cou- ple of seasons in Paris. Georgie I She was the hand- somest, 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 Slif era from Mobile — no end of people — some from Phila- delphia — and Ohio." "Ohio? Those Bensons !" said she, turning sharply on him. "Yes, those Bensons, Penelojie. Why not?" " Oh, nothing. It's a free country. I hope, Stan- hope, you didn't encourage her. You might make her very unhappy." " I trust not," said King, stoutly. " We are en- gaged." "Engaged !" repeated Mrs, Glow, in a tone that im- plied a whole world of astonishment and improbability. /V?f^y the tlecorousness of tlio place, and eonsciouh of their good clothes. Enter together three stout men, a yard across the shoulders, each with an enoinujus development in front, waddle up to the bar, atti'iinit to form a triangular group for C(>nvci-satiy-^^r t:i -."r {^^'■■"' 'xyH^y "^^k- ■ , S ^ V — /L \ ' ill Vie 'I,ET US PASS UNDER THE FESTOONS OF THE HOP VINES.' 284 Their Pilgrimage. 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 hold, the fer- tile valleys in pleasing irregularity falling away from rounded wooded hills in a manner to produce the im- pression 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 up- land 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 hahituks 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 boarding- houses which line the broad principal street. The centre of the town is the old Spring House and grounds. When our travellers 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 at- mosphere of comfort. The building has rather a co- lonial character, with its long corridors and pillared piazzas; built at different times, and without any par- ticular plans except to remain old-fashioned, it is now Their Pilgrimage. 285 a big, ramliliiig white mass of buildings in tlie midst of maple-trees, with so many stairs and passa^-es on dif- ferent levels, and so many nooks and corners, tliat the stranger is always getting lost in it — turning up in the luxurions smoking-room when he wants to dine, and opening a (hjor that lets him out into the jiark 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 uidjonght testimony of Miss Lamont, who, with her uiu/le, had been there long enough to ac- <|uire the common anxiety of sojourners that the new- comers should l)e pleased, and who superfluously ex- plained the attractions of the place to the artist, as if in his eyes, that rested on her, more than one attrac- tion was needed. It was very pleasant to see the good comradeship that existed between these two, and the frank expression (if their delight in meeting again. Here was a friendship without any reserve, or any rue- ful misunderstandings, or necessity for explanations, Irene's eyes followeied in rary and began the story. 292 Their Pilgrimage. The party returned in a moralizing vein. How vague alreadjf in tlie village which his genius has made known over the civilized world is the fame of Cooper ! To our tourists the place was saturated with his pres- ence, but the new generation cares more for its smart prosperity than for all his romance. Many of the pas- sengers on the boat had stopped at a lake-side tavern to dine, jjreferring a good dinner to the associations which drew our sentimentalists to the spots that were hallowed by the necromancer's imagination. And why not? One cannot live in the past forever. The people on the boat who dwelt in Cooperstown were not talk- ing about Cooper, perhaps had not thought of him for a year. The ladies, seated in the bow of the boat, were comparing notes about their rheumatism and the mea- sles of their children ; one of them had been to the funeral of a young girl who was to have been married in the autumn, poor thing, and she told her companion who were at the funeral, and how they were dressed, and how little feeling Xancy seemed to show, and how shiftless it was not to have more flowers, and how the bridegroom bore up — well, perhajJS it's an escape, .she was so weakly. The day lent a certain pensiveness to all this; the season was visibly waning ; the soft maples showed color, the orchards were heavy with fruit, the moun- tain-ash hung out its red signals, the hop-vines were yellowing, and in all the fence corners the golden-rod flamed and made the meanest high-road a wav of glory. On Irene fell a spell of sadness that afi'ected her lover. Even Mrs. Bartlett-Glow seemed touched by some re- gret for the fleeting of the gay season, and the top of Tlieir Pilgrimage. 293 the coach would have been mcLancholy enough hut for the high spirits of Marion and the artist, whose gayety expanded in the abundance of the harvest season. Happy natures, unrestrained by the subtle melancholy of a decaying year ! The summer was really going. On Sunday the weather broke in a violent storm of wind and rain, and at sunset, when it abated, there were portentous gleams on the hills, and threatening clouds lurking about the skj^. It was time to go. Few people have the courage to abide the breaking of the serenity of summer, and remain in the country for the more glorious autumn days that are to follow. The Glows must hurry back to Newport. The Bensons would not be persuaded out of their fixed plan to "take in," as IMr. Benson expressed it, the White Moun- tains. The others were going to Niagara and the Thousand Islands ; and when King told Irene that he would much rather change his route and accom- jjany her, he saw by the girl's manner that it was best not to press the subject. He dreaded to push an ex- planation, and, foolish as lovers are, he was wise for once in trusting to time. But he had a miserable evening, lie let himself be irritated by the light- heartedncss of Forbes. He objected to the latter's whistling as he went about his room packing up his traps. He hated a fellow that was always in high spirits. "Why, what has come over you, old man?" queried the artist, stopping to take a critical look at his comrade. " Do you want to get out of it V It's my impression that you haven't taken sulphur water enough." "WHY, WHAT HAS COIIE OYER YOU, OLD MAX .' On Monday morning tlievc was a general clearing out. The platform at the station was crowded. The palace-cars for Kew York, for Niagara, for Albany, for the West, were overflowing. There was a pile of trunks as big as a city dwelling-house. Baby-carriages Their Pilgrimage. 295 cumberetl the way; dogs were under foot, yelping and rending the tender hearts of their owners; the porters staggered about under tlieir loads, and shouted till the}' were hoarse; farewells were said ; rendezvous made — alas ! how many half-fledged hopes came to an end on that platform ! The artist thought he had never seen so many pretty girls together in his life he- fore, and each one had in her belt a bunch of golden- rod. Summer was over, sure enough. At ITtiea the train was broken up, and its cars de- spatched in various directions. King remembered tliat it was at Utica that the younger Cato sacrificed him- self. In the presence of all the world Irene bade him good-live. "It will not be for long," said King, with an attempt at gayety. "Nothing is for long," she said, with the same manner. And then added in a low tone, as she slipped a note into his hand, " Do not think ill of me." King opened the note as soon as he found his seat in the ear, and this was what he read as the train rushed westward towards the Great Fall: "My deae Feiend, — How can I ever say it? It is best that we separate. I have thought and thought; I have struggled with myself. I thitik that I know it is best for you. I have been happy — ah me ! Dear, we must look at the world as it is. "W^e cannot change it — if we break our hearts, we cannot. Don't Idame your cousin. It is nothing that she has done. She has been as sweet and kind to me as ]iossible, but I have seen through her what I feared, just how it is. Don't reproach me. It is hard now. I know it. But I 296 Their Pilgrimage. believe that you vill come to see it as I do. If it was any sacrifice that I could make, that would be easy. But to think that I had sacrificed you, and that you should some daj- become aware of it ! You are free. I am not silly. It is the future I am thinking of. You must take your place in the world where your lot is cast. Don't think I have a foolish pride. Perhaps it is pride that tells me not to jjut myself in a false position; perhaps it is something else. Never think it is want of heart in Ieexe. " Good-bye." As King finished this he looked out of the window. The landscape was black. CHAPTER XIV, I:n" the car for Niagara was an Englishman of the receptive, guileless, thin type, inquisitive and over- flowing with approval of everything American — a type Avhich has now become one of the common features of travel in this country. He had light hair, sandy side-whiskers, a face that looked as if it had hcen scrubbed with soap and sand-paper, and he wore a sickly yellow travelling- suit. lie Avas accompanied by his wife, a stout, resolute matron, in heavy l>oots, a sensible stufi^ gown, with a lot of cotton lace fudged about her neck, and a broad-brimmed hat with a vege- table garden on top. The little man Avas always in pursuit of information, in his guide-book or from his fellow-passengers, and whenever he obtained any he invariably repeated it to liis wife, who said "Fancy!" and "Xow, really!" in a rising inflection that ex])ressed surprise and expectation. The conceited American, who commonly draws him- self into a shell when he travels, and afl^ects indiffer- ence, and seems to bo losing all natural curiosity, receptivity, and the power of observation, is pretty certain to undervalue the intelligence of this class of English travellers, and get amusement out of their peculiarities instead of learning from them how to make everj' day of life interesting. Even King, who, besides his national crust of exclusivcncss, was to-day "WHO SAID, 'r.tN'CTl' AKD ' KOTT, REALLY!' '' Tvrapped iu tlie gloom of Irene's letter, was gradually drawn to these simple, unpretending people. He took for granted their ignoranee of America — ignorance of America being one of the branches taught in the Eng- lish schools — and he soon discovereil that they were citizens of the world. They not only knew the Con- tinent very well, but they had spent a winter in Egypt, lived a year in India, and seen something of China and much of Japan. Although they had lieen scarcely a fortnight in the United States, King d<:uil.ited if there were ten women in the state of Xew York, not pro- fessional teachers, who knew as much of the flora of the country as this plain-featured, rich-voiced woman. They called King's attention to a great many features of the landscape he had never noticed before, and asked Their Pilgrimage. 299 him a great many questions aliont farmino; and stock and wages tliat lie could not answer. It appeare