"Ah," rejoined the young barrister, "I haven't the expectation of a hundred thousand a year, not to mention other attractions.""Well," said Lord Lambeth, "don't cry out before you're hurt!"It was certainly very much cooler at Newport, where our travelers found themselves assigned to a couple of diminutive bedrooms in a faraway angle of an immense hotel. They had gone ashore in the early summer twilight and had very promptly put themselves to bed; thanks to which circumstance and to their having, during the previous hours, in their commodious cabin, slept the sleep of youth and health, they began to feel, toward eleven o'clock, very alert and inquisitive.
They looked out of their windows across a row of small green fields, bordered with low stone walls of rude construction, and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky, and flecked now and then with scintillating patches of foam.
A strong, fresh breeze came in through the curtainless casements and prompted our young men to observe, generally, that it didn't seem half a bad climate. They made other observations after they had emerged from their rooms in pursuit of breakfast--a meal of which they partook in a huge bare hall, where a hundred Negroes, in white jackets, were shuffling about upon an uncarpeted floor;where the flies were superabundant, and the tables and dishes covered over with a strange, voluminous integument of coarse blue gauze;and where several little boys and girls, who had risen late, were seated in fastidious solitude at the morning repast.
These young persons had not the morning paper before them, but they were engaged in languid perusal of the bill of fare.
This latter document was a great puzzle to our friends, who, on reflecting that its bewildering categories had relation to breakfast alone, had an uneasy prevision of an encyclopedic dinner list.
They found a great deal of entertainment at the hotel, an enormous wooden structure, for the erection of which it seemed to them that the virgin forests of the West must have been terribly deflowered.
It was perforated from end to end with immense bare corridors, through which a strong draught was blowing--bearing along wonderful figures of ladies in white morning dresses and clouds of Valenciennes lace, who seemed to float down the long vistas with expanded furbelows, like angels spreading their wings.
In front was a gigantic veranda, upon which an army might have encamped--a vast wooden terrace, with a roof as lofty as the nave of a cathedral.
Here our young Englishmen enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of American society, which was distributed over the measureless expanse in a variety of sedentary attitudes, and appeared to consist largely of pretty young girls, dressed as if for a fete champetre, swaying to and fro in rocking chairs, fanning themselves with large straw fans, and enjoying an enviable exemption from social cares.
Lord Lambeth had a theory, which it might be interesting to trace to its origin, that it would be not only agreeable, but easily possible, to enter into relations with one of these young ladies; and his companion (as he had done a couple of days before) found occasion to check the young nobleman's colloquial impulses.
"You had better take care," said Percy Beaumont, "or you will have an offended father or brother pulling out a bowie knife.""I assure you it is all right," Lord Lambeth replied. "You know the Americans come to these big hotels to make acquaintances.""I know nothing about it, and neither do you," said his kinsman, who, like a clever man, had begun to perceive that the observation of American society demanded a readjustment of one's standard.
"Hang it, then let's find out!" cried Lord Lambeth with some impatience.
"You know I don't want to miss anything.""We will find out," said Percy Beaumont very reasonably.
"We will go and see Mrs. Westgate and make all proper inquiries."And so the two inquiring Englishmen, who had this lady's address inscribed in her husband's hand upon a card, descended from the veranda of the big hotel and took their way, according to direction, along a large straight road, past a series of fresh-looking villas embosomed in shrubs and flowers and enclosed in an ingenious variety of wooden palings.
The morning was brilliant and cool, the villas were smart and snug, and the walk of the young travelers was very entertaining.
Everything looked as if it had received a coat of fresh paint the day before--the red roofs, the green shutters, the clean, bright browns and buffs of the housefronts. The flower beds on the little lawns seemed to sparkle in the radiant air, and the gravel in the short carriage sweeps to flash and twinkle.
Along the road came a hundred little basket phaetons, in which, almost always, a couple of ladies were sitting--ladies in white dresses and long white gloves, holding the reins and looking at the two Englishmen, whose nationality was not elusive, through thick blue veils tied tightly about their faces as if to guard their complexions. At last the young men came within sight of the sea again, and then, having interrogated a gardener over the paling of a villa, they turned into an open gate.
Here they found themselves face to face with the ocean and with a very picturesque structure, resembling a magnified chalet, which was perched upon a green embankment just above it.
The house had a veranda of extraordinary width all around it and a great many doors and windows standing open to the veranda.
These various apertures had, in common, such an accessible, hospitable air, such a breezy flutter within of light curtains, such expansive thresholds and reassuring interiors, that our friends hardly knew which was the regular entrance, and, after hesitating a moment, presented themselves at one of the windows.