emed to understand
that the sweethearts wanted to be alone, and they made excuses to be off
to bed. On the porch, wrapped in comforters and coats against the
seaside chill, Father and Mother cuddled together. They said
little--everything was said for them by the moonlight, silvery on the
marshes, wistful silver among the dunes, while the surf was lulled and
the whole spacious night seemed reverent with love. His hand cradled
hers as the hand of a child would close round a lily leaf.

Halcyon days of sitting in rocking-chairs under the beech-trees on
locust-zizzing afternoons, of hunting for shells on the back-side shore
of the Cape, of fishing for whiting from the landing on the bay side, of
musing among the many-colored grasses of the uplands. They would have
gone ambling along such dreamland roads to the end of their vacation had
it not been for the motor-car of Uncle Joe's son-in-law.

That car changed their entire life. Among the hills of peace there was
waiting for them an adventure.

Uncle Joe's son-in-law lived in a portable bungalow a mile away. He
rotated crops. He peddled fish with a motor-car. In five minutes he
could detach from the back of his car the box in which he carried the
fish, clap on a rather rickety tonneau, and be ready to compete in
stylish pleasures with the largest limousine from Newport or Brookline.
Father and Mother went wheezing about the country with him. Father had
always felt that he had the makings of a motorist, because of the
distinct pleasure he had felt in motor-bus rides on New York Sundays,
and he tactfully encouraged the son-in-law in the touring mania. So it
was really Father's fault that they found the tea-room.

The six of them, the Applebys, the Tubbses, and son-in-law and daughter,
somewhat cramped as to space and dusty as to garments, had motored to
Cotagansuit. Before them, out across the road, hung the sign: Ye Tea
Shoppe.

"Say, by Jiminy! let's go into that Tea Shoppy and have some eats," said
Father. "My treat."

"Nope, it's mine," said the Tubbses' son-in-law, hypocritically.

"Not a word out of you!" sang out Father, gallantly. "Hey there,
chauffeur, stop this new car of mine at the Shoppy."

As the rusty car drew up Mrs. Tubbs and Mother looked rather agitatedly
at a group of young people, girls in smocks and men in white flannels,
who were making society noises before the brown barn which had been
turned into a tea-room. The two old women felt that they w