on
top of the coach. An elderly beau was assiduously attending upon a young
woman who was about to mount the ladder. She was a plain girl, with an
air of refined health, and simply clad in white.

"She's worth sixteen million dollars in her own right," said Chapman,
with a groan.

On the sidewalk, between the Casino and the coach, were two groups of
girls. One group gazed up at their friends on the coach, wishing them
good-fortune; the other gazed upon the first, eagerly and enviously.
Andrew looked from one to the other. The girls who talked to those on
the coach wore organdie frocks of simple but marvellous construction.
Shading their young pellucid eyes, their bare polished brows, were large
Leghorn hats covered with expensive feathers or flowers. Air, carriage,
complexion, manner, each was a part of the unmistakable uniform of the
New York girl of fashion. But the others? Andrew put the question to
Chapman.

"Oh, they're natives. We call them that to distinguish them from the
cottagers. They get close whenever they get a chance, and copy the
cottagers' clothes and manners. But it doesn't take a magnifying-glass
to see the difference."

Andrew looked with a pity he did not admit was fellow-feeling at the
pretty girls with their bright complexions, their merely stylish
clothes--which reminded him of Polly's--the inferior feathers in their
chip hats. The sharp contrast between the two groups of girls was almost
painful.

"I've got to leave you," said Chapman; "but I'll see you later. Take
care of yourself."

The horn tooted, the whip cracked, the coach started. The men on the
club balcony above the Casino watched it lazily. The street between the
coach and the green wall opposite had been blocked with carriages that
now rolled away.

Webb turned his attention to the group of cottagers. One of the girls
wore a yellow organdie trimmed with black velvet ribbons, a large
Leghorn covered with yellow feathers and black velvet. She was not
pretty, but she had "an air," and that was supremest beauty in Andrew's
eyes. Another was in lilac, another in pink. Each had the same sleek
brown hair, the same ivory complexion. In attendance was a tall clumsily
built but very imposing young man with sleepy blue eyes and a mighty
mustache. The girls paid him marked attention.

They chatted for a few moments, then walked through the entrance of
the Casino, over the lawn, towards the lower balcony of the horseshoe
surrounding i