counts for much here.”
“Why did we come here?”
“I had nothing to do with it. Mamma is answerable for that. For my part I prefer Saratoga, where there’s less pretensions about pedigree, and where a shopkeeper’s daughter is as good as his granddaughter. I wanted to go there this season. Mother objected. Nothing would satisfy her but Newport, Newport, Newport! And here we are. Thank Heaven! it won’t be for long.”
“Well, since we are here, let us at least enjoy what everybody comes for – the bathing.”
“Pretends to come for, you mean! Dipping their skins in salt water, the Miss J.’s, and L.’s, and B.’s – much has that to do with their presence at Newport! A good thing for them if it had! It might improve their complexions a little. Heaven knows they need it; and Heaven be thanked I don’t.”
“But you’ll bathe to-day?”
“I shan’t!”
“Consider, cousin! It’s such a delightful sensation.”
“I hate it!”
“You’re jesting, Julia?”
“Well, I don’t mean that I dislike bathing – only in that crowd.”
“But there’s no exclusiveness on the beach.”
“I don’t care. I won’t go among them any more – on the beach, or elsewhere. If I could only bathe out yonder, in the deep blue water, or amid those white breakers we see! Ah! that would be a delightful sensation! I wonder if there’s any place where we could take a dip by ourselves?”
“There is; I know the very spot I discovered it the other day, when I was out with Keziah gathering shells. It’s down under the cliffs. There’s a sweet little cave, a perfect grotto, with a deepish pool in front, and smooth sandy bottom, white as silver. The cliff quite overhangs it. I’m sure no one could see us from above; especially if we go when the people are bathing. Then everybody would be at the beach, and we’d have the cliff shore to ourselves. For that matter, we can undress in the cave, without the chance of a creature seeing us. Keziah could keep watch outside. Say you’ll go, Julia?”
“Well, I don’t mind. But what about mamma? She’s such a terrible stickler for the proprieties. She may object.”
“We needn’t let her know anything about it. She don’t intend bathing to-day; she’s just told me so. We two can start in the usual style, as if going to the beach. Once outside, we can go our own way. I know of a path across the fields that’ll take us almost direct to the place. You’ll go?”
“Oh, I’m agreed.”
“It’s time for us to set out, then. You hear that tramping along the corridor? It’s the bathers about to start. Let us call Keziah, and be off.”
As Julia made no objection, her sprightly cousin tripped out into the corridor; and, stopping before the door of an adjoining apartment, called “Keziah!”
The room was Mrs Girdwood’s; Keziah, her servant – a sable-skinned damsel, who played lady’s maid for all three.
“What is it, child?” asked a voice evidently not Keziah’s.
“We’re going to bathe, aunt,” said the young lady, half-opening the door, and looking in. “We want Keziah to get ready the dresses.”
“Yes, yes,” rejoined the same voice, which was that of Mrs Girdwood herself. “You hear, Keziah? And hark ye, girls!” she added, addressing herself to the two young ladies, now both standing in the doorway, “see that you take a swimming lesson. Remember we are going over the great seas, where there’s many a chance of getting drowned.”
“Oh, ma! you make one shiver.”
“Well, well, I hope swimming may never be needed by you. For all that, there’s no harm in being able to keep your head above water, and that in more senses than one. Be quick, girl, with the dresses! The people are all gone; you’ll be late. Now, then, off with you!”
Keziah soon made her appearance in the corridor, carrying a bundle.
A stout, healthy-looking negress – her woolly head “toqued” in New Orleans style, with a checkered bandanna – she was an appanage of the defunct storekeeper’s family; specially designed to give to it an air Southern, and of course aristocratic. At this time Mrs Girdwood was not the only Northern lady who selected her servants with an eye to such effect.
Slippers were soon kicked off, and kid boots pulled on in their places. Hats were set coquettishly on the head, and shawls – for the day was rather cool – were thrown loosely over shoulders.
“Come on!” and at the word the cousins glided along the gallery, descended the great stair, tripped across the piazza outside, and then turned off in the direction of the Bath Road.
Once out of sight of the hotel, they changed their course, striking into a path that led more directly toward the cliff.
In less than twenty minutes after, they might have been seen descending it, through one of those sloping ravines that here and there interrupt the continuity of the precipice – Cornelia going first, Julia close after, the turbaned negress, bearing her bundle, in the rear.
Chapter Two.
A Brace of Naiads
They were seen.
A solitary gentleman sauntering along the cliff, saw the girls go down.
He was coming from the direction of Ochre Point, but too far off to tell more than that they were two young ladies, followed by a black servant.
He thought it a little strange at that hour. It was bathing-time upon the beach. He could see the boxes discharging their gay groups in costumes of green and blue, crimson and scarlet – in the distance looking like parti-coloured Lilliputians.
“Why are these two ladies not along with them?” was his reflection. “Shell-gatherers, I suppose,” was the conjecture that followed. “Searchers after strange seaweeds. From Boston, no doubt. And I’d bet high that the nose of each is bridged with a pair of blue spectacles.”
The gentleman smiled at the conceit, but suddenly changed it. The sable complexion of the servant suggested a different conclusion.
“More like they are Southerners?” was the muttered remark.
After making it he ceased to think of them. He had a gun in his hand, and was endeavouring to get a shot at some of the large seabirds now and then sweeping along the escarpment of the cliff.
As the tide was still only commencing to return from its ebb, these flew low, picking up their food from the stranded algae that, like a fringe, followed the outlines of the shore.
The sportsman, observing this, became convinced he would have a better chance below; and down went he through one of the gaps – the first that presented itself!
Keeping on towards the Forty Steps, he progressed only slowly. Here and there rough ledges required scaling; the yielding sand also delayed him.
But he was in no hurry. The chances of a shot were as good at one place as another. Hours must elapse
