how the salt, dewy morning air has brought
the color into the sensitive face of the girl. There are not many such
hours in a lifetime, he is also thinking, when nature can be seen in
such a charming mood, and for the moment it compensates for the night
ride.

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

"It is so English," said the artist.

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

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

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

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

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

Laughing and criticising and admiring, the party strolled along the
shaded avenue to the Ocean House. There were as yet no signs of life
at the Club, or the Library, or the Casino; but the shops were getting
open, and the richness and elegance of the goods displayed in the
windows were the best evidence of the wealth and refinement of the
expected customers--culture and taste always show themselves in the
shops of a town. The long gray-brown front of the Casino, with its
shingled sides and hooded balconies and galleries, added to the already
strong foreign impression of the place. But the artist was dissatisfied.
It was not at all his idea of Independence Day; it was like Sunday, and
Sunday without any foreign gayety. He had expected firing of cannon
and ringing of bells--there was