FullReads

In regard to his summers, Mr. Port–after a month spent for the good of his liver in taking the waters at the White Sulphur–of course went to Narragan-sett Pier. It may be accepted as an incontrovertible truth that a Philadelphian of a certain class who missed coming to the Pier for August would refuse to believe, for that year at least, in the alternation of the four seasons; while an enforced absence from that damply delightful watering-place for two successive summers very probably would lead to a rejection of the entire Copernican system.

II.

“Poor dear mamma and I did not have a harsh word for years, Uncle Hutchinson,” Miss Lee explained, in the course of the somewhat animated discussion that arose in consequence of Mr. Port’s declaration that a part of their summer would be passed, in accordance with his usual custom, at the White Sulphur, and of Dorothy’s declaration that she did not want to go there. This, her first summer in America, was the third summer after Mrs. Lee’s translation; and since Dorothy had come into colors again she naturally wanted to make the most of them. “No, not a single harsh word did we ever have. We always agreed perfectly, you know; or if mamma thought differently at first she always ended by seeing that my view of the matter was the right one. The only serious difference that I remember since I was quite a little girl was that last autumn in Paris; when I had everything so perfectly arranged for a delightful winter in St. Petersburg, and when mamma was completely set in her own mind that we must go to the south of France. Her cough was getting very bad then, you know, and she said that a winter in Russia certainly would kill her. I don’t think it would have killed her, at least not especially; but the doctor backed mamma up–and said some horrid things to me in his polite French way–and declared that St. Petersburg was not even to be thought of.

“And so, when I found that they were both against me that way, of course I sacrificed my own feelings and told mamma that I would do just what she wanted. And mamma cried and kissed me, and said that I was an angel: wasn’t it sweet of her? To be sure, though, she was having her own way, and I wasn’t; and I think that I was an angel myself, for I did want to go to Russia dreadfully. After all, as things turned out, we might almost as well have gone; for poor dear mamma, you know, died that winter anyway. But I’m glad I did what I could to please her, and that she called me an angel for doing it. Don’t you think that I was one? And don’t you feel, sir, that it is something of an honor to be an angel’s uncle?

“Now suppose I kiss you right on your dear little bald spot, and that we make up our minds not to go to that horrid sulphur place at all. Everybody says that it is old-fashioned and stupid; and that is not the kind of an American watering-place that I want to see, you know. It would have been all very well if we’d gone there while I was in mourning, and had to be proper and quiet and retired, and all that; but I’m not in mourning any longer, Uncle Hutchinson–and you haven’t said yet how you like this breakfast gown. Do you have to be told that white lace over pale-blue silk is very becoming to your angel niece, Uncle Hutchinson? And now you shall have your kiss, and then the matter will be settled.” With which words Miss Lee–a somewhat bewildering but unquestionably delightful effect in blond and blue–fluttered up to her elderly relative, embraced him with a graceful energy, and bestowed upon his bald spot the promised kiss.