[CLAM BEACH].
The Chowder House at Clam Beach is not a giant among the hotels which line the Atlantic coast. It is designed to accommodate only a hundred guests, and even at the height of the season it refuses to stretch its capacity beyond a hundred and fifty. It stands upon a solitary shore, is some miles from the nearest railway, and shows nothing from its windows but the tumbling line of surf and the daily procession of cloud and sunshine across a boundless stretch of sea and sand.
It is a three-storeyed building encased in wooden galleries, which form outside corridors on the different floors; and it forms three sides of a square, enclosing to the back a sheltered tennis-lawn for those who would avoid the bluster of the keen sea-breeze.
The place is resorted to by families with a juvenile division, whose nurses and small fry burrow in the sand which comes up to the very doorsteps. It makes no pretence to fashion. The guests feel at liberty to be happy, each in his own favourite dress and manner, without fear of being compromised. The young bathe in the surf and walk or ride on the sands all day; and after the Yankee supper of meats, fruit, and tea, which takes place at seven, make themselves gay with dances and singing: while the seniors stroll together in groups, or sit apart, acquiescing in the American law of life, which gives the world to the young, and places the middle-aged with the elders on the shelf. The old may work, if so is their good pleasure, but it is only the lads and lasses who are to play.
It was early afternoon, in the very hottest of the day. The first bell for dinner had rung, and the guests were streaming towards the house from every point along the shore; while the most hungry, already arrived, loitered on the galleries, and counted the minutes till the dining-room should be thrown open.
The omnibus from the station, jolting round the corner, and drawing up before the door, afforded a pleasing diversion from the yearnings of appetite. It brought the newspapers of the day; and more, it brought new guests, who, busied in alighting and claiming their luggage, formed a subject for observation to the idle eyes above, unintroduced as yet, and therefore at liberty to stare their fill with all the impertinent curiosity at their disposal.
The ladies counted the boxes on the roof, and turned away with a sniff. Even at Clam Beach, with its freedom from dress parade, the number of trunks is taken as a criterion of "standing," and certain ladies of grand manner from Boston are even suspected of bringing empty ones to support their position.
The men, toothpick in mouth, continued to stare. There were two pretty faces visible beneath the flapping brims of broad seaside hats,--one violet-eyed, with masses of sunny brown hair; the other blond, with eyes like the forget-me-not,--and they could study them without prejudice or offence just then. Later, when they met in the parlours above, it would be different.
Presently the hotel cart trotted up with a number of trunks. A slight "Ah!" of satisfaction spread itself on the air, and the ladies resumed their attitude of observation. They were not going to be compromised after all, it seemed, by the presence of fellow-guests without ostensible movable property, and forthwith they began to note the value and fashion of each article of the feminine newcomers' wardrobe, and the general look of the men. One of these appeared about thirty, available for flirtation and social uses; while the other was older, with a suspicion of grey in the short close-cut whisker--a florid and well-fed man, and seemingly well to do, which was a point in favour of his female following: and a point of some sort is needed where available men to marriageable girls stand in the proportion of only two to five.
Two oldish ladies brought up the number of the arrivals to six; but as they were dressed in the ordinary manner of the period, nobody noticed them much. They were mere furniture, intended to remain in corners, and be sat beside when younger women, finding themselves neglected, chose to assume demureness under the wing of a chaperon.