“No, because George's business is with the Attorney General, and he wrote to me that he would not be ready until January. However, January is six months off yet. For the present, you have enough on your hands with your plans for the summer.”
“That is very true. We will order some summer things to be made immediately. But I feel quite sure that we can find imported dresses ready made that will suit. I saw some lovely batists and grenadines at Arnold & Constable's, just from Paris, also beautiful embroidered muslins at Stewart's. We will see to-morrow and be ready to return the day after.”
Life at Long Branch in the Mechlin cottage was very delightful to Elvira and Mercedes. When they had been there about two weeks, Mr. Robert Gunther appeared on the scene, and next day Mr. Arthur Selden followed. As they were old friends of the Mechlins, Mrs. Mechlin thought it was a natural thing that these two young gentlemen, on their return from their travels, should come to see her at Long Branch.
“In a day or two we are going to Newport, young gentlemen,” she said. “You had better join our party and we'll all go together.”
“I shall be most happy. My mother and sister have been with friends in the White Mountains, but will be at Newport next week, so this arrangement will suit me,” said Gunther.
“It will suit me, also, as I promised my mother and sisters I should be at Newport in two weeks. Saratoga is too hot for me. I left them there under father's care. He likes Saratoga,” Mr. Selden said.
If their sojourn at Long Branch had seemed so delightful to Elvira and Mercedes, their pleasures increased ten-fold at Newport. The Mechlin villa, shaded by tall elms and poplars, and surrounded by shrubbery and flowers, with a beautiful lawn and fountains in front, facing the ocean, and well-kept walks and arbors in different places on the grounds, was certainly a charming abode, fit to please the most fastidious taste. Then the drives, croquet playing, boat sailing and promenades, were also much enjoyed by our two little Californians. In the evenings, music and dancing would add variety to their pleasures, until such life seemed to them too charming to be real.
“And is this life repeated every summer, year after year?” asked Mercedes one evening as in the coming twilight she was sitting with Mr. Bob Gunther in a cozy bower of roses located on a little knoll in the grounds of the Gunther villa. They were looking at the gay equipages which drove by. Gunther sighed as he answered.
“Do you like this life?”
“Very much, but perhaps because it is a novelty to me. However, I am never tired of things that I once like, so I suppose I would like it always.”