“Perhaps the gentlefolks want to go to Saltwater?” spoke up one of the two porters employed at the little station. “There’s lots of terraces there. Here, Jim!”—calling to his fellow—“come here a minute. He’ll know, sir; he comes from Saltwater.”
Jim approached, and settled the doubt at once. He knew Seaboard Terrace very well indeed; it was at Saltwater; just out at the eastern end of it.
Yes, it was at Saltwater. And there were we, more than two miles off it, on a broiling hot day, when walking was impracticable, with all our trunks about us, and no fly to be had, or other means of getting on. The Squire went into one of his passions, and demanded why people living at Saltwater should give their address as Montpellier-by-Sea.
He had hardly patience to listen to the station-master’s explanation—who acknowledged that we were not the first travelling party that had been deluded in like manner. Munpler (as he and the rest of the natives persisted in calling it) was an extensive, straggling rural parish, filled with farm lands; an arm of it extended as far as Saltwater, and the new buildings at that end of Saltwater had rechristened themselves Montpellier-by-Sea, deeming it more aristocratic than the common old name. Had the Squire been able to transport the new buildings, builders and all, he had surely done it on the spot.
Well, we got on to Saltwater in the evening by another train, and to No. 6, Seaboard Terrace. Mary Blair was just delighted.
“If I had but known you were coming, if you had only written to me, I would have explained that it was Saltwater Station you must get out at, not Montpellier,” she cried in deprecation.
“But, my dear, why on earth do you give in to a deception?” stormed the Squire. “Why call your place Montpellier when it’s Saltwater?”
“I do what other people do,” she sighed; “I was told it was Montpellier when I came here. Generally speaking, I have explained, when writing to friends, that it is really Saltwater, in spite of its fine name. I suppose I forgot it when writing to you—I had so much to say. The people really to blame are those who named it so.”
“And that’s true, and they ought to be shown up,” said the Squire.
Seaboard Terrace consisted of seven houses, built in front of the sea a little beyond the town. The parlours had bay windows; the drawing-rooms had balconies and verandahs. The two end houses, Nos. 1 and 7, were double houses, large and handsome, each of them being inhabited by a private family; the middle houses were smaller, most of them being let out in lodgings in the season. Mary Blair began talking that first evening as we sat together about the family who lived in the house next door to her, No. 7. Their name was Peahern, she said, and they had been so very, very kind to her since she took her house in March. Mr. Peahern had interested himself for her and got her several pupils; he was much respected at Saltwater. “Ah, he is a good man,” she added; “but——”