"They told me to take care of myself," Duggie said to her sort of doubtfully.
"He 's afraid of my nags," she explained to me as I clambered up beside her.
"I 'm afraid of your driving," Duggie answered. "I brought Jack Hollis down here to rest one Saturday and Sunday," he said to me, "and after she'd whirled him around the country for several hours on two wheels and run into a few trees and spilled him over a cliff, the poor thing went back to town with heart disease and has never been the same since."
Now, of course, Duggie merely meant to give me an exaggerated idea of his sister's driving, and she, of course, knew that his remark was quite innocent; but nevertheless she began to blush (it was then, I think, that I first noticed how pretty she was) and abruptly gave one of the horses a slap with the whip that sent us plunging and nearly snapped my head off.
"Hold on, Tommy," Duggie called to me. "This is what I go through every time I come home." Then, as a flock of terrified hens scuttled shrieking from under the ponies' feet, he added: "Tell them I was very brave and hopeful to the end and that my last words were about the team." But pretty soon the horses settled down into a fast, steady trot, and we bowled along the prettiest road I 've ever seen—between thick woods, and, farther on, great, uneven meadows marked off in irregular shapes with low fences of rough stone. The meadows to the right ran back to the woods, but the ones on the left stretched away ahead of us into a vast plain. It gave me a queer, happy feeling that I can't explain—as if I were going to soar out of the cart and over the meadows—straight on into space. I could n't imagine where such a sweep of luminous horizon led to—it seemed extraordinary to come across anything so much like a prairie in New England. The air, too, had a lot to do with the way I felt. It was wonderful air—not cold exactly, and not wet; although I thought every minute that it was going to be both. It had a peculiar smell to it that, without knowing why, I liked. I filled my lungs with it, and somehow it made me feel bigger than I usually do. Then all at once the ponies scampered over the top of a little incline, and, although Miss Sherwin was telling me something, I gasped out:
"Oh-h-h-h—it's the ocean!" and forgot what she was saying, and even that she and Duggie and the cart were with me at all. For I had never seen it before; and it was right there in front of me—brimming over in long, slow, green, pillowy things that rolled forward and slipped back, forward and back, until all at once they got top heavy and lost control of themselves and tumbled over the edge in a delirious white and green confusion that slid across the sand in swift, foamy triangles almost up to our wheels and made the ponies shrink to the other side of the road in a sort of coquettish dance. Then there was a very slim, refined-looking lighthouse on a gray rock bordered by a little white frill where it touched the water, and beyond that, putting out to sea, was a great ship with bulging sails, and a steamer that left a lonely trail of black smoke sagging after it for miles.
I don't know how long I stared at these things, or how long I should have kept on staring at them, if I had n't happened to glance up and see that Miss Sherwin was looking down at me and laughing. I think she expected me to say something, but I couldn't bring myself to come out with either of the only two things that occurred to me—one of which was that as it looked so exactly as I always thought it was going to, I did n't see why I felt almost like bursting into tears when we came over the hill-top and actually saw it; and the other was—that I should have very much liked to get down and taste it. However, Miss Sherwin had about all she could do to attend to the horses and did n't insist on an explanation; so we said hardly anything all the rest of the way, and just let the wind blow in our faces and watched the waves tumble across the hard sand for miles.
At first nothing at the Sherwins' seemed in the least real to me. Even Duggie struck me as altogether different, although he was, of course, just the same—only seen in unexpected surroundings.
First of all, when we arrived, a groom popped up from behind a hedge and took the horses; then two young men in dark green clothes with brass buttons and yellow waistcoats bustled down from the piazza to get our things out of the cart. They were rather handsome, but had very troubled expressions, and looked as if they worried a good deal for fear they shouldn't do it right. Duggie nodded to them over his shoulder, and I think they were secretly gratified at this—although I suspect them of having worried terribly for fear they might betray it. They helped us off with our coats and hats when we got inside, which is all well enough, and makes you feel as grand as you do in a barber-shop, but has its disadvantages, for they run away with everything you have, and lock them up somewhere in a safe, and when you want to go out to play with the dogs or take a walk and think it all over, you usually have to tell Vincent to tell Dempsey to tell Chamberlain that you would like a hat.
Miss Sherwin led me through some beautiful rooms, and as we walked along she turned to me and exclaimed,—