"I don't want anybody to row for me, Mr. Walker; I came out to take a little exercise, and I can do it best when I am all alone," said Miss Lily Bristol to a young gentleman of about eighteen who stood on the sandy beach.
"But it will be a good deal more sociable to have company," replied Walk Billcord with a smile and a smirk.
Lily Bristol had the reputation of being a very pretty girl, and fame had not exaggerated her beauty. She was very plainly dressed, but she was as neat as though she had just come out of the bureau-drawer. She was seated in a rude flatboat, with a pair of oars in her hands, which she seemed to know how to use.
The boat was only a rod or two from the end of Sandy Point, at the southern side of the entrance to a bay with the same name. It was in the spring of the year, and the water in Lake Champlain was at its highest.
Hardly more than a rod from the point where the rippling waves sported with the bright sand was a small and lightly-built cottage. It contained two rooms on the lower floor, with two small attic chambers over them. The structure rested on posts set in the sand, and looked as light and airy as a bird-cage.
This cottage was the home of Peter Bristol, or, rather, of his wife and two children; for the father of the family had been away for two years, seeking to better his impaired fortunes. Peter had always been a poor man, and was always likely to be. He had been a sort of Jack-at-all-trades, not particularly good at any. He had been a fireman on a railroad, a farm-hand, a general jobber; he had tried his hand at almost everything without much success.
Major Billcord owned all the land near Sandy Point. Some years before, he had taken it into his head that the high ground in the rear of Sandy Bay would be an excellent site for a hotel. Some of his friends did not agree with him, and assured him that a hotel could not live in this location.
But the major was an obstinate man, and had his own way. He erected a structure of fifty rooms, with the intention of adding a hundred more after the first season. But for half a dozen reasons the hotel was a dreary failure. It never contained more than half a score of guests at any one time.
Included in this small number was Colonel Buckmill, who was then looking for a suitable site for an academy. The owner of the estate would not admit that the hotel was a failure, but he hinted that the building might be obtained for the school. It exactly suited Colonel Buckmill, and a bargain was soon made for a lease of it. In this manner the Sunnyside Hotel became the Chesterfield Collegiate Institute in the autumn of the same year.