“I have a short hiatus in my life before the political campaign fairly commences, and shall yawn through it at Newport with Paulding. Why won’t you drop in and see something of our world after your long absence? You will be amused and perhaps instructed in the new social discoveries. Your relatives, the Waddies, have a house there, a capital lounging place, and are expected back from Europe soon to occupy it.
“We made little Budlong rather unhappy for leaving you. Chin Chin shut off his cheroots. Miss Arabella wouldn’t forgive him for abandoning ‘that charming Mr. Waddy.’ However, she consoled herself with Miromenil, that sprig of the haute noblesse. You will find them all at Newport.”
“Fine lad, Dunstan,” said Waddy, “but somewhat melancholy—probably spent too much money in Europe. Perhaps he’s lost his heart to Miss Waddie; but he didn’t talk like a disappointed lover; only sad, not bitter. Well, when I’ve finished my business here and Granby comes, I may as well begin my home experience with Newport—as well there as anywhere.”
When the cobbler, being shaken, responded with only a death-rattle of dry ice, Mr. Waddy lighted his cheroot and strolled into the Common. It was loveliest moonlight. He sat on a bench reclined against an elm. The policeman coming by, stopped, willing to chat of crime. It was too pure a night for any thought save reveries of pensive peace; so Waddy gagged him with a cigar. An hour afterward, at midnight, the same, re-passing, found the smoker still posted on his bench.
So for hours of that delicious night of summer he sat beneath the flickering elm shadows. Sweet breezes from overland, where roses were, came and played among the branches. There was no sorrow nor sighing in the voices of this summer wind—only love, love! Did Mr. Waddy hear them? Had some hopeful Cupid peered into his face, he would have fled affrighted at its stern misery.
Across the ripples and beyond the silver islands of the bay, at Nahant, where one of the first hops of the season was now careering, the Wilkes party were spending a day or two. They were all hopping merrily to-night, Gyas the brave and the brave Cloanthus alternating with Miss Julia. Miss Milly Center had also been brought down to join the Wilkeses, by her Boston friends; and Mr. Billy Dulger, moth to her flame, had followed, disregarding the claims of his papa’s counting-house in New York. They all danced and flirted and were well pleased, though not very susceptible truly to the exalting influences of the moonlit sea.
Miss Sullivan’s dancing days were over, except when she was kind enough to practice with a débutante, or teach some awkward youth the graces in a turn or two. The music, however, was fine, and the girls, at first, fresh and not all crumpled. So she, too, was pleased with the pretty sight. But it grew no prettier, and presently she walked away from the hotel out upon the rocks. The music mingled softly with the plashing sea. The fall of waves was like the trembling of many leaves; each dot of water on the dark rocks was a diamond, filled with a diminished moon. Here, too, was the breeze that told of love; the lulling beat of waves said softly love, and the great, dreamy, mysterious sea, over all its brilliant and shimmering calm, seemed permeated by an infinite spirit of eternal love. Looking out upon it, Miss Sullivan’s face softened and saddened, and her eyes filled again with tears.
About this time, Mr. Waddy, on his bench in Boston Common, feeling that the end of his third cheroot was about to frizzle the tips of his moustache, was taking a last, long puff, when a mosquito, suddenly sailing in, nipped his nose. The sufferer immediately discovered that his life was a burden. He threw away his stump with great violence, walked back to his hotel, and laid down his burden under a mosquito-bar.