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“And from Saratoga, of course, we shall go to the Pier,” said Mr. Port, but with a certain aggressiveness of tone that gave to his assertion the air of a proposition in support of which argument might be required.

“To Narragansett, you mean? Oh, certainly. From what several people have told me about Narragansett I think that it must be quite entertaining, and I want to see it. And of course, Uncle Hutchinson, even if I didn’t care about it at all, I should go all the same; for I want to fall in exactly with your plans and put you to as little trouble as possible, you know. For if your angel wasn’t willing to be self-sacrificing, she really wouldn’t be an angel at all.”

Pleasing though this statement of Early Christian sentiment was, it struck Mr. Port–as he subsequently revolved it slowly in his slowly-moving mind–as lacking a little on the side of practicality; for Miss Lee, so far, unquestionably had contrived to upset with a fine equanimity every one of his plans that was not absolutely identical with her own.

III.

On the whole, the Saratoga expedition was not a success. Even on the journey, coming up by the limited train, Miss Lee was not favorably impressed by the appearance of her fellow-passengers. Nearly all of the men in the car (most of whom immediately betook themselves to the bar-room, euphoniously styled a buffet, at the head of the train) were of a type that would have suggested to one accustomed to American life that variety of it which is found seated in the high places of the government of the city of New York; and the aggressively dressed and too abundantly jewelled female companions of these men, heavily built, heavy browed, with faces marked in hard lines, and with aggressive eyes schooled to look out upon the world with a necessarily emphatic self-assertion, were of a type that, without special knowledge of American ways, was entirely recognizable. Albeit Miss Lee, having spent much time in the mixed society of various European watering-places, was not by any means an unsophisticated young person, and was not at all a squeamish one, she was sensibly relieved by finding that the chair next to hers was occupied by a silvery-haired old lady of the most unquestionable respectability; and her composure was further restored, presently, by the return to his chair, on the other side of her of Mr. Port: who had betaken himself to what the conductor had told him was the smoking-room, and who, finding himself in a bar-room, surrounded by a throng of hard-drinking, foul-mouthed men, had sacrificed his much-loved cigar in order to free himself from such distinctly offensive surroundings.

At their hotel, and elsewhere, Miss Lee and her uncle encountered many of their fellow-passengers by the limited train, together with others of a like sort which previous trains had brought thither; and while, on the whole, these were about balanced by a more desirable class of visitors, they were in such force as to give to the life of the place a very positive tone.

At the end of a week Dorothy avowed herself disappointed. “I never did think much of poor dear mamma’s taste, you know, Uncle Hutchinson,” she said, with her customary frankness, “and what she found to like in this place I’m sure I can’t imagine. It’s tawdry and it’s vulgar; and as for its morals, I think that it’s worse than Monte Carlo. I suppose that there is a nice side to it, for I do see a few nice people; but, somehow, they all seem to stand off from each other as though they were afraid here to take any chances at all with strangers. And I don’t blame them, Uncle Hutchinson, for I feel just that way myself. What you ought to have done was to have hired a cottage, and then people would have taken the trouble to find out about us; and when they’d found that we were not all sorts of horrid things we should have got into the right set, and no doubt, at least if we’d stayed here through August, we should have had a very nice time.