the waves, the
flight of the throng is a relief. There is a selfish satisfaction
in passing the great summer caravansaries and seeing them closed
and silent; in knowing that the splendor of the night will not be
marred by garish lights and still more garish sounds.

Were it not for the crowd, Narragansett Pier would be an ideal
spot for rest and recreation. The beach is perfect,--hard, firm
sand, sloping so gradually into deep water, and with so little
undertow and so few dangers, that children can play in the water
without attendants. The village itself is inoffensive, the country
about is attractive; but the crowd--the crowd that comes in
summer--comes with a rush almost to the hour in July, and takes
flight with a greater rush almost to the minute in August,--the
crowd overwhelms, submerges, ignores the natural charms of the
place, and for the time being nature hides its honest head before
the onrush of sham and illusion.

Why do the people come in a week and go in a day? What is there
about Narragansett that keeps every one away until a certain time
each year, attracts them for a few weeks, and then bids them off
within twenty-four hours? Just nothing at all. All attractions the
place has--the ocean, the beach, the drives, the country--remain
the same; but no one dares come before the appointed time, no one
dares stay after the flight begins; no one? That is hardly true,
for in every beautiful spot, by the ocean and in the mountains,
there are a few appreciative souls who know enough to make their
homes in nature's caressing embrace while she works for their pure
enjoyment her wondrous panorama of changing seasons. There are
people who linger at the sea-shore until from the steel-gray
waters are heard the first mutterings of approaching winter; there
are those who linger in the woods and mountains until the green of
summer yields to the rich browns and golden russets of autumn,
until the honk of the wild goose foretells the coming cold; these
and their kind are nature's truest and dearest friends; to them
does she unfold a thousand hidden beauties; to them does she
whisper her most precious secrets.

But the crowd--the crowd--the painted throng that steps to the
tune of a fiddle, that hangs on the moods of a caterer, whose
inspiration is a good dinner, whose aspiration is a new dance,--
that crowd is never missed by any one who really delights in the
manifold attractions of nature.

Not that the crowd at Nar