ance.

The old man with the spectacles was presently overtaken by a stout,
elderly woman, who landed in the exhausted condition of a porpoise that
has come ashore, and stood regardless of everything but her own weight,
while member after member of the party straggled up. No sooner did this
group espy the artist than they moved in his direction. "There's a
painter." "I wonder what he's painting." "Maybe he'll paint us." "Let's
see what he's doing." "I should like to see a man paint." And the crowd
flowed on, getting in front of the sketcher, and creeping round behind
him for a peep over his shoulder. The artist closed his sketch-book and
retreated, and the stout woman, balked of that prey, turned round a
moment to the view, exclaimed, "Ain't that elegant!" and then waddled off
to the hotel.

"I wonder," Mr. King was saying, "if these excursionists are
representative of general American life?"

"If they are," said the artist, "there's little here for my purpose. A
good many of them seem to be foreigners, or of foreign origin. Just as
soon as these people get naturalized, they lose the picturesqueness they
had abroad."

"Did it never occur to your highness that they may prefer to be
comfortable rather than picturesque, and that they may be ignorant that
they were born for artistic purposes?" It was the low voice of Miss
Lamont, and that demure person looked up as if she really wanted
information.

"I doubt about the comfort," the artist began to reply.

"And so do I," said Miss Sumner. "What on earth do you suppose made
those girls come up here in white dresses, blowing about in the wind, and
already drabbled? Did you ever see such a lot of cheap millinery? I
haven't seen a woman yet with the least bit of style."

"Poor things, they look as if they'd never had a holiday before in their
lives, and didn't exactly know what to do with it," apologized Miss
Lamont.

"Don't you believe it. They've been to more church and Sunday-school
picnics than you ever attended. Look over there!"

It was a group seated about their lunch-baskets. A young gentleman, the
comedian of the patty, the life of the church sociable, had put on the
hat of one of the girls, and was making himself so irresistibly funny in
it that all the girls tittered, and their mothers looked a little
shamefaced and pleased.

"Well," said Mr. King, "that's the only festive sign I've seen. It's more
like a funeral procession than a pleasure excursion. What