had retired from
something--banking, wholesale drugs, the manufacture of woolens. The
families were all perfectly familiar with one another's financial rating
and histories, and although they came from diverse sections of the
country they were for two months or more like one large, supremely
contented family. In truth, they called themselves facetiously "The
Happy Family," and in this way Mr. Cone, who took an immense pride in
them and in the fact that they returned to his hospitable roof summer
after summer, always referred to them.

Strictly speaking, there were two branches of the "Family": those whose
first season antedated 1900, and the "newcomers," who had spent only
eight, or ten, or twelve summers at The Colonial. They were all on the
most friendly terms imaginable, yet each tacitly recognized the
distinction. The original "Happy Family" occupied the rocking chairs on
the right-hand side of the wide veranda, while the "newcomers" took the
left, where the view was not quite so good and there was a trifle less
breeze than on the other.

The less said of the "transients" the better. The few who stumbled in
did not stay unless by chance they were favourably known to one of the
"permanents." Of course there was no rudeness ever--merely the polite
surprise of the regular occupants when they find a stranger in the pew
on Sunday morning. Sometimes the transient stayed out his or her
vacation, but usually he confided to the chambermaid, and sometimes Mr.
Cone, that the guests were "doodledums" and "fossils" and found another
hotel where the patrons, if less solid financially, were more
interesting and sociable.

Wallace Macpherson belonged in the group of older patrons, as his aunt,
Miss Mary Macpherson, had been coming since 1897, and he himself from
the time he wore curls and ruffled collars, or after his aunt had taken
him upon the death of his parents.

"Wallie," as he was called by everybody, as the one eligible man under
sixty, was, in his way, as much of an asset to the hotel as the
notoriously wealthy Mr. Penrose. Of an amiable and obliging disposition,
he could always be relied upon to escort married women with mutinous
husbands, and ladies who had none, mutinous or otherwise. He was
twenty-four, and, in appearance, a credit to any woman he was seen with,
to say nothing of the two hundred thousand it was known he would inherit
from Aunt Mary, who now supported him.

Wallie's appearance upon the veranda wa