no men, no dinners; nothing
going on as yet. The Casino is only just opened, and people haven't
begun to go there. We tried to get up a tennis match, but there weren't
enough good players to make it worth while. There's absolutely nothing.
Mrs. Courtenay Gray had a girls' lunch on Tuesday; but that is all, and
that didn't count for much."

"That's Georgie Gray's mother, isn't it? Is she there?"

"Oh, yes,--she and Gertrude, all the Grays. They're as nice and
delightful as can be, of course, but somehow they're so literary and
quiet, and Mrs. Gray is awfully particular about the girls. She makes
them keep on with studying all summer, and she's so exclusive,--she
won't let them visit half the new people."

"Gracious! why not?"

"Oh, I don't know,--she says they're not good form, and all that; but
I'm sure she knows queer people enough herself. There is that tiresome
old Miss Gisborne down in Washington Street,--the girls are forever
going there; and I've seen them myself ever so many times coming out of
the Hares',--and _they_ take boarders!"

"Fancy! How extraordinary! Oh, there are the frigates!"

For the "Eolus," leaving the wooded, wall-like bank of Gould's Island
behind, and rounding a point, had now reached the small curving bay to
the eastward of Coasters' Harbor, where lay the training-ships, the "New
Hampshire" and the "Minnesota." It was a beautiful sight,--the two great
war-vessels at anchor, with their tall tapering spars and flying flags
reflected in the water on which they floated. Lines of glinting white
flashed along the decks; for it was "wash-day," and the men's clothes
were drying in the sun. Two or three barges were disembarking visitors
at the gangway ladders, and beyond them a sail-boat was waiting its turn
to do the same. On the pier a file of blue-uniformed boys were marching
with measured tread. The sound of their feet came across the distance
like the regular beat of a machine. A girl in a row-boat was just
pushing out from the farther beach, above which rose a stone house
covered with vines.

"That's Miss Isherwood," said one of the young ladies. "She's a splendid
rower, and Tom says she swims as well as he does."

The whole scene was like enchantment to Candace, who had lived all her
life among the hills of Connecticut, and had never till that day seen
the ocean. She was much too shy to ask questions, but she sat like one
in a dream, taking in with wide-open eyes all the details of the