re, and when I pinned him down, he was not certain which route
they took. It is my opinion that the most costly scenery in the world is
thrown away upon a pair of newly plighted lovers.

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

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

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

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

Long Branch and its adjuncts were planned for New York excursionists who
are content with the ocean and the salt air, and do not care much for
the picturesque. It can be described in a phrase: a straight line of
sandy coast with a high bank, parallel to it a driveway, and an endless
row of hotels and cottages. Knowing what the American seaside cottage
and hotel are, it is unnecessary to go to Long Branch to have an
accurate picture of it in the mind. Seen from the end of the pier, the
coast appears to be all built up--a thin, straggling city by the sea.
The line of buildings is continuous for two miles, from Long Branch to
Elberon; midway is the West End, where our tou