"Oh," says Cousin E. E. "Isn't that beautiful? So fresh, so bright, it is like a moving garden."
So it was. All along those deep verandahs that run clear across the front of the hotel in double rows, were swinging baskets full of flowers and cool green leaves—hundreds of them—brightening the whole broad front of the hotel, and under them was a crowd of people—gentlemen, ladies, and children—reading, chatting, sleeping in the great easy willow chairs, or walking up and down on the soft grass.
Sisters, I know now exactly the way an Arab feels when he finds a bright spring—which they call an oasis—in the deserts of Sahara, and hears the leaves shiver and the waters murmur. This hotel looked cool, still, and refreshing like that. All the front was in shadow, before it lay the deep blue water. Inside was Mr. Leland, a potentate among hotel-keepers, ready to make us at home.
There it was again. Ovations will follow me. I had but just taken off my dusty clothes, bathed my face and hands with cold water, and stepped out on the verandah, when a storm of music burst out from a little summer-house on the grass. Wherever I go this sort of ovation follows me. Music and flowers seem to be my destiny. No matter where I roam, in all the steamboats and hotels they send storms of homage after me. Well, I am grateful, and I hope bear these honors with Christian meekness.
I have been riding all along the beach. The sun has gone down and the ocean ripples to the softest and blandest wind I ever felt. The vessels that move on it show signs of life now. Their great white sails bend and strain with a look of power. The day has been hot, but a cool wind comes off the water, and you breathe once more.
Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses, full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart.
LXXX.
THE RACE-COURSE.
THERE is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep, with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.