The main street of pretty Digby runs close to the water. The bluff is crowned by a grassy sward and a row of well-grown trees, with a driveway between these and the buildings on the further side.
“Oh! how lovely and how different from our own seaside places, with their hot sands, board walks, and cityfied shops. I hope no board walk will ever spoil this charming boulevard!” exclaimed a lady, who stood at a hotel window overlooking Annapolis Basin, on whose shore nestles the little town.
“Yes, Mamma! Aren’t you glad you came?” asked Monty Stark, entering the room and joining her at the window.
“I hope I shall be, dear. I’m a little anxious about your friends. I should greatly object, myself, to having people force themselves upon a touring party I had organized. But you must understand, Montmorency, that if I discover the slightest sign of objection to us, I shall go on my own way and you will have to go with me. I—I am not accustomed to being patronized or—no matter. I came to please you, my precious boy, and I hope it will be all right. Let me see if you are quite correct. I suppose the guests wear evening dress for dinner as in other civilized places. Though—it looks more like a country village yonder, than a real watering place.”
“But, Mamma, it is a country village. Nothing else, the Judge says. And somehow I feel rather silly in this rig. I saw the Judge a moment ago and he wasn’t in evening clothes, but he’s a ‘brick’ all right!”
“Montmorency! How can you use such dreadful expressions?”
“Easy as preaching, chere Maman!”
“I’m afraid your associates at Brentnor are not all of them as refined and exclusive as I had supposed. I’ve observed other phrases that I do not like. One of them was, I think, ‘Shucks!’”
“Yes, I reckon you did. I didn’t catch that from a Brentnor, though, but from Jim Barlow.”
“Who is he, pray?”