tanding gawking there like two escaped imbeciles."

This allusion irritated Flint, as he remembered the last two
occasions, when she had borne herself less seriously. The recollection
colored his first remark, after they had clambered into the carryall,
and persuaded Dobbin to resume his leisurely trot.

"I am afraid myself, inconsistent as it seems, I should have liked her
better if she had not taken hold in such a capable, mannish fashion.
There is a certain appealing dependence which is rather becoming to a
woman--to my thinking, that is--it is an old-fashioned notion, I
admit."

"Well, I must say I don't think an attitude of appealing dependence
would have been very serviceable to us to-day; and as an habitual
state of mind, while it may be very attractive, it seems to imply
having some one at hand to appealingly depend upon. Our sex must have
reciprocal duties; but I don't notice that you have offered yourself
as a support for any of these clinging natures."

"Nevertheless," answered Flint, "if I ever did fall in love, it would
be with a woman of the clinging kind. But don't let us get to talking
like a couple of sentimental schoolgirls! Here we are, anyway, at the
last turn of the road, and there is Nepaug Beach. How does it strike
you?"

"It reminds me," said Brady, smiling, "of the Walrus and the
Carpenter:--

"'They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand.
If this were only cleared away
They said it would be grand.'"

"Brady, you are a sentimentalist! You sigh for brooks and willows and,
for all I know, _people_."

"Flint, you are a misanthrope! You have searched out this God-forsaken
stretch of sand just for the purpose of getting away from your kind.
Now I have hunted you to your lair, and I propose to stay with you for
a fortnight; but I am not to be dragooned into saying that I think
your resort is a scene of beauty, for I don't; but that is a jolly,
old, gray, tumbled-down building over there--a barn, I suppose."

"No, sir; that is the Nepaug Inn. As it has neither porters, waiters,
nor electric bells, you are expected to shoulder your own luggage and
march upstairs--second room to the right. Whoa, there!" he called out
to the old horse a full minute after the animal had come to a dead
halt in front of the inn door. The noise, however, served its purpose
in bringing Marsden to the door, and loading the old inn-keeper with
imprecations for their unlucky