e as in August, it was still marvelously
beautiful, and the night voyage around the illuminated islands was
something long to be remembered.

There were endless devices of colored lamps and lanterns, figures of
crosses, crowns, the Seal of Solomon, and the most strange effects
produced on foliage and in the water by red and green and purple fires.
It was a night of enchantment, and the hotel and its grounds on the dark
background of the night were like the stately pleasure-house in "Kubla
Khan."

But the season was drawing to an end. The hotels, which could not
find room for the throngs on Saturday night, say, were nearly empty on
Monday, so easy are pleasure-seekers frightened away by a touch of cold,
forgetting that in such a resort the most enjoyable part of the year
comes with the mellow autumn days. That night at ten o'clock the band
was scraping away in the deserted parlor, with not another person in
attendance, without a single listener. Miss Lamont happened to peep
through the window-blinds from the piazza and discover this residuum of
gayety. The band itself was half asleep, but by sheer force of habit it
kept on, the fiddlers drawing the perfunctory bows, and the melancholy
clarionet men breathing their expressive sighs. It was a dismal sight.
The next morning the band had vanished.

The morning was lowering, and a steady rain soon set in for the day.
No fishing, no boating; nothing but drop, drop, and the reminiscence of
past pleasure. Mist enveloped the islands and shut out the view. Even
the spirits of Mrs. Farquhar were not proof against this, and she tried
to amuse herself by reconstructing the season out of the specimens of
guests who remained, who were for the most part young ladies who had
duty written on their faces, and were addicted to spectacles.

"It could not have been," she thought, "ultrafashionable or madly gay. I
think the good people come here; those who are willing to illuminate."

"Oh, there is a fast enough life at some of the hotels in the summer,"
said the artist.

"Very likely. Still, if I were recruiting for schoolmarms, I should come
here. I like it thoroughly, and mean to be here earlier next year.
The scenery is enchanting, and I quite enjoy being with 'Proverbial
Philosophy' people."

Late in the gloomy afternoon King went down to the office, and the clerk
handed him a letter. He took it eagerly, but his countenance fell when
he saw that it bore a New York postmark, and ha