e, and looked solid and respectable, many of them were shingled on
the sides, a spire peeped out over the green trees, and the hamlet was at
once homelike and picturesque. Refinement is the note of the landscape.
Even the old warehouses dropping into the water, and the decaying piles
of the wharves, have a certain grace. How graciously the water makes
into the land, following the indentations, and flowing in little streams,
going in and withdrawing gently and regretfully, and how the shore puts
itself out in low points, wooing the embrace of the sea--a lovely union.
There is no haze, but all outlines are softened in the silver light. It
is like a dream, and there is no disturbance of the repose when a family
party, a woman, a child, and a man come down to the shore, slip into a
boat, and scull away out by the lighthouse and the rocky entrance of the
harbor, off, perhaps, for a day's pleasure. The artist has whipped out
his sketch-book to take some outlines of the view, and his comrade,
looking that way, thinks this group a pleasing part of the scene, and
notes how the salt, dewy morning air has brought the color into the
sensitive face of the girl. There are not many such hours in a lifetime,
he is also thinking, when nature can be seen in such a charming mood, and
for the moment it compensates for the night ride.

The party indulged this feeling when they landed, still early, at the
Newport wharf, and decided to walk through the old town up to the hotel,
perfectly well aware that after this no money would hire them to leave
their beds and enjoy this novel sensation at such an hour. They had the
street to themselves, and the promenade was one of discovery, and had
much the interest of a landing in a foreign city.

"It is so English," said the artist.

"It is so colonial," said Mr. King, "though I've no doubt that any one of
the sleeping occupants of these houses would be wide-awake instantly, and
come out and ask you to breakfast, if they heard you say it is so
English."

"If they were not restrained," Marion suggested, "by the feeling that
that would not be English. How fine the shade trees, and what brilliant
banks of flowers!"

"And such lawns! We cannot make this turf in Virginia," was the
reflection of Mr. De Long.

"Well, colonial if you like," the artist replied to Mr. King. "What is
best is in the colonial style; but you notice that all the new houses are
built to look old, and that they have had Queen Ann