w goes farther
than a kiss; it is a warfare wherein it does not pay to be on the
defensive; those are revered who are most feared; those who nail
to their mast the black flag and show no quarter are the
recognized leaders,--Society is piracy.

Green's Inn was cheery, comfortable, and hospitable; but then the
season had passed and things had returned to their normal routine.

The summer hotel passes through three stages each season,--that of
expectation, of realization, and of regret; it is unpleasant
during the first stage, intolerable during the second, frequently
delightful during the third. During the first there is a period
when the host and guest meet on a footing of equality; during the
second the guest is something less than a nonentity, an humble
suitor at the monarch's throne; during the third the conditions
are reversed, and the guest is lord of all he is willing to
survey. It is conducive to comfort to approach these resorts
during the last stage,--unless, of course, they happen to be those
ephemeral caravansaries which close in confusion on the flight of
the crowd; they are never comfortable.

The best road from Boston to New York is said to be by way of
Worcester, Springfield, and through central Connecticut via
Hartford and New Haven; but we did not care to retrace our wheels
to Worcester and Springfield, and we did want to follow the shore;
but we were warned by many that after leaving the Pier we would
find the roads very bad.

As a matter of fact, the shore road from the Pier to New Haven is
not good; it is hilly, sandy, and rough; but it is entirely
practicable, and makes up in beauty and interest what it lacks in
quality.

We did not leave Green's Inn until half-past nine the morning
after our arrival, and we reached New Haven that evening at
exactly eight,--a delightful run of eighty or ninety miles by the
road taken.

The road is a little back from the shore and it is anything but
straight, winding in and out in the effort to keep near the coast.
Nearly all day long we were in sight of the ocean; now and then
some wooded promontory obscured our view; now and then we were
threading woods and valleys farther inland; now and then the road
almost lost itself in thickets of shrubbery and undergrowth, but
each time we would emerge in sight of the broad expanse of blue
water which lay like a vast mirror on that bright and still
September day.

We ferried across the river to New London. At Lyme