“Yes, sir. I am here with my daughter and my wife. My daughter gets value, sir, in the hops at the Ocean House, and the nice society she meets with—real bang-up swells, sir. My wife gets value out of the salt water, sir—health, sir, which improves her body and her temper, sir. She is a quick-tempered woman is Mrs. Finche, and when she’s ill, sir, she’s ugly.”
At this moment the pony phaeton which I had observed from the piazza of the hotel dashed up to the lich-gate.
“My daughter and her friend, Miss Neville, an English girl, sir, of a very high family, poor as cheap claret, sir, but proud as a coupon, sir. She’s on a visit to us, but we get value out of her. She sings lovely, sir; you shall hear her. It entertains our swell friends, and thus we strike a balance. The tall one is my daughter, sir.”
I saw a slim but well-proportioned figure, clad in a rich black silk dress, the cut of which, even to my masculine eyes, betrayed the hand of an artist; a face, though not beautiful by any means, earnest and interesting, surmounted by a profusion of little fair curls, arranged, as was the fashion, so as to conceal the forehead; a picturesque hat, a pair of diamond solitaire earrings, and upon the whole a person decidedly “fetching.” Her companion was petite, and constructed, as they say of saucy steamers, upon the most perfect lines. She was a clear brunette, and as she swept somewhat haughtily past the glowing ribbon borders I bethought me of Cleopatra, and the passage down the Cydnus of that boat which wrecked the fortunes of the luckless Antony.
Of course I gazed at the possessor of five hundred thousand dollars, as the “penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree” counted for nothing.
“Hattie, this is my old friend, Mr. Crosse, of Noo York, who has come to Newport to take some value out of the summer-time.”
Miss Finche was very gracious, presenting me with a hand encased in a glove of many buttons, and flashing a row of magnificent teeth between each smile.
“Are you a ‘cottager,’ Mr. Crosse?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Are you at the Ocean or the Acquednuk?”