Chapter 13

A SUMMER HOTEL.

Mrs. Wishart was reminded of Belinda again the next morning. Lois was beaming. She managed to keep their talkative neighbour in order during breakfast; and then proposed to Mrs. Wishart to take a walk. But Mrs. Wishart excused herself, and Lois set off alone. After a couple of hours she came back with her hands full.

"O, Mrs. Wishart!" she burst forth,--"this is the very loveliest place you ever saw in your life! I can never thank you enough for bringing me! What can I do to thank you?"

"What makes it so delightful?" said the elder lady, smiling at her. "There is nothing here but the sea and the rocks. You have found the philosopher's stone, you happy girl!"

"The philosopher's stone?" said Lois. "That was what Mr. Dillwyn told me about."

"Philip? I wish he was here."

"It would be nice for you. _I_ don't want anybody. The place is enough."

"What have you found, child?"

"Flowers--and mosses--and shells. O, the flowers are beautiful! But it isn't the flowers, nor any one thing; it is the place. The air is wonderful; and the sea, O, the sea is a constant delight to me!"

"The philosopher's stone!" repeated the lady. "What is it, Lois? You are the happiest creature I ever saw.--You find pleasure in everything."

"Perhaps it is that," said Lois simply. "Because I am happy."

"But what business have you to be so happy?--living in a corner like Shampuashuh. I beg your pardon, Lois, but it is a corner of the earth. What makes you happy?"

Lois answered lightly, that perhaps it was easier to be happy in a corner than in a wide place; and went off again. She would not give Mrs. Wishart an answer she could by no possibility understand.

Some time later in the day, Mrs. Wishart too, becoming tired of the monotony of her own room, descended to the piazza; and was sitting there when the little steamboat arrived with some new guests for the hotel. She watched one particular party approaching. A young lady in advance, attended by a gentleman; then another pair following, an older lady, leaning on the arm of a cavalier whom Mrs. Wishart recognized first of them all. She smiled to herself.

"Mrs. Wishart!" Julia Caruthers exclaimed, as she came upon the verandah. "You _are_ here. That is delightful! Mamma, here is Mrs. Wishart. But whatever did bring you here? I am reminded of Captain Cook's voyages, that I used to read when I was a child, and I fancy I have come to one of his savage islands; only I don't see the salvages. They will appear, perhaps. But I don't see anything else; cocoanut trees, or palms, or bananas, the tale of which used to make my mouth water. There are no trees here at all, that I can see, nor anything else. What brought you here, Mrs. Wishart? May I present Mr. Lenox?--What brought you here, Mrs. Wishart?"

"What brought _you_ here?" was the smiling retort. The answer was prompt.

"Tom."

Mrs. Wishart looked at Tom, who came up and paid his respects in marked form; while his mother, as if exhausted, sank down on one of the chairs.

"Yes, it was Tom," she repeated. "Nothing would do for Tom but the Isles of Shoals; and so, Julia and I had to follow in his train. In my grandmother's days that would have been different. What is here, dear Mrs. Wishart, besides you? You are not alone?"

"Not quite. I have brought my little friend, Lois Lothrop, with me; and she thinks the Isles of Shoals the most charming place that was ever discovered, by Captain Cook or anybody else."

"Ah, she is here!" said Mrs. Caruthers dryly; while Julia and Mr. Lenox exchanged glances. "Much other company?"

"Not much; and what there is comes more from New Hampshire than New York, I fancy."

"Ah!--And what else is here then, that anybody should come here for?"

"I don't know yet. You must ask Miss Lothrop. Yonder she comes. She has been exploring ever since five o'clock, I believe."

"I suppose she is accustomed to get up at that hour," remarked the other, as if the fact involved a good deal of disparagement. And then they were all silent, and watched Lois, who was slowly and unconsciously approaching her reviewers. Her hands were again full of different gleanings from the wonderful wilderness in which she had been exploring; and she came with a slow step, still busy with them as she walked. Her hat had fallen back a little; the beautiful hair was a trifle disordered, showing so only the better its rich abundance and exquisite colour; the face it framed and crowned was fair and flushed, intent upon her gains from rock and meadow--for there was a little bit of meadow ground at Appledore;--and so happy in its sweet absorption, that an involuntary tribute of homage to its beauty was wrung from the most critical. Lois walked with a light, steady step; her careless bearing was free and graceful; her dress was not very fashionable, but entirely proper for the place; all eyes consented to this, and then all eyes came back to the face. It was so happy, so pure, so unconscious and unshadowed; the look was of the sort that one does not see in the assemblies of the world's pleasure-seekers; nor ever but in the faces of heaven's pleasure-finders. She was a very lovely vision, and somehow all the little group on the piazza with one consent kept silence, watching her as she came. She drew near with busy, pleased thoughts, and leisurely happy steps, and never looked up till she reached the foot of the steps leading to the piazza. Nor even then; she had picked up her skirt and mounted several steps daintily before she heard her name and raised her eyes. Then her face changed. The glance of surprise, it is true, was immediately followed by a smile of civil greeting; but the look of rapt happiness was gone; and somehow nobody on the piazza felt the change to be flattering. She accepted quietly Tom's hand, given partly in greeting, partly to assist her up the last steps, and faced the group who were regarding her.

"How delightful to find you here, Miss Lothrop!" said Julia,--"and how strange that people should meet on the Isles of Shoals."

"Why is it strange?"

"O, because there is really nothing to come here for, you know. I don't know how we happen to be here ourselves.--Mr. Lenox, Miss Lothrop.--What have you found in this desert?"

"You have been spoiling Appledore?" added Tom.

"I don't think I have done any harm," said Lois innocently. "There is enough more, Mr. Caruthers."

"Enough of what?" Tom inquired, while Julia and her friend exchanged a swift glance again, of triumph on the lady's part.

"There is a shell," said Lois, putting one into his hand. "I think that is pretty, and it certainly is odd. And what do you say to those white violets, Mr. Caruthers? And here is some very beautiful pimpernel--and here is a flower that I do not know at all,--and the rest is what you would call rubbish," she finished with a smile, so charming that Tom could not see the violets for dazzled eyes.

"Show me the flowers, Tom," his mother demanded; and she kept him by her, answering her questions and remarks about them; while Julia asked where they could be found.

"I find them in quite a good many places," said Lois; "and every time it is a sort of surprise. I gathered only a few; I do not like to take them away from their places; they are best there."

She said a word or two to Mrs. Wishart, and passed on into the house.

"That's the girl," Julia said in a low voice to her lover, walking off to the other end of the verandah with him.

"Tom might do worse," was the reply.

"George! How can you say so? A girl who doesn't know common English!"

"She might go to school," suggested Lenox.

"To school! At her age! And then, think of her associations, and her ignorance of everything a lady should be and should know. O you men! I have no patience with you. See a face you like, and you lose your wits at once, the best of you. I wonder you ever fancied me!"

"Tastes are unaccountable," the young man returned, with a lover-like smile.

"But do you call that girl pretty?"

Mr. Lenox looked portentously grave. "She has handsome hair," he ventured.

"Hair! What's hair! Anybody can have handsome hair, that will pay for it."

"She has not paid for hers."

"No, and I don't mean that Tom shall. Now George, you must help. I brought you along to help. Tom is lost if we don't save him. He must not be left alone with this girl; and if he gets talking to her, you must mix in and break it up, make love to her yourself, if necessary. And we must see to it that they do not go off walking together. You must help me watch and help me hinder. Will you?"

"Really, I should not be grateful to anyone who did _me_ such kind service."

"But it is to save Tom."

"Save him! From what?"

"From a low marriage. What could be worse?"

"Adjectives are declinable. There is low, lower, lowest."

"Well, what could be lower? A poor girl, uneducated, inexperienced, knowing nobody, brought up in the country, and of no family in particular, with nothing in the world but beautiful hair! Tom ought to have something better than that."

"I'll study her further, and then tell you what I think."

"You are very stupid to-day, George!"

Nobody got a chance to study Lois much more that day. Seeing that Mrs. Wishart was for the present well provided with company, she withdrew to her own room; and there she stayed. At supper she appeared, but silent and reserved; and after supper she went away again. Next morning Lois was late at breakfast; she had to run a gauntlet of eyes, as she took her seat at a little distance.

"Overslept, Lois?" queried Mrs. Wishart.

"Miss Lothrop looks as if she never had been asleep, nor ever meant to be," quoth Tom.

"What a dreadful character!" said Miss Julia. "Pray, Miss Lothrop, excuse him; the poor boy means, I have no doubt, to be complimentary."

"Not so bad, for a beginner," remarked Mr. Lenox. "Ladies always like to be thought bright-eyed, I believe."

"But never to sleep!" said Julia. "Imagine the staring effect."

"_You_ are complimentary without effort," Tom remarked pointedly.

"Lois, my dear, have you been out already?" Mrs. Wishart asked. Lois gave a quiet assent and betook herself to her breakfast.

"I knew it," said Tom. "Morning air has a wonderful effect, if ladies would only believe it. They won't believe it, and they suffer accordingly."

"Another compliment!" said Miss Julia, laughing. "But what do you find, Miss Lothrop, that can attract you so much before breakfast? or after breakfast either, for that matter?"

"Before breakfast is the best time in the twenty-four hours," said Lois.

"Pray, for what?"

"If _you_ were asked, you would say, for sleeping," put in Tom.

"For what, Miss Lothrop? Tom, you are troublesome."

"For doing what, do you mean?" said Lois. "I should say, for anything; but I was thinking of enjoying."

"We are all just arrived," Mr. Lenox began; "and we are slow to believe there is anything to enjoy at the Isles. Will Miss Lothrop enlighten us?"

"I do not know that I can," said Lois. "You might not find what I find."

"What do you find?"

"If you will go out with me to-morrow morning at five o'clock, I will show you," said Lois, with a little smile of amusement, or of archness, which quite struck Mr. Lenox and quite captivated Tom.

"Five o'clock!" the former echoed.

"Perhaps he would not then see what you see," Julia suggested.

"Perhaps not," said Lois. "I am by no means sure."

She was let alone after that; and as soon as breakfast was over she escaped again. She made her way to a particular hiding-place she had discovered, in the rocks, down near the shore; from which she had a most beautiful view of the sea and of several of the other islands. Her nook of a seat was comfortable enough, but all around it the rocks were piled in broken confusion, sheltering her, she thought, from any possible chance comer. And this was what Lois wanted; for, in the first place, she was minded to keep herself out of the way of the newly-arrived party, each and all of them; and, in the second place, she was intoxicated with the delights of the ocean. Perhaps I should say rather, of the ocean and the rocks and the air and the sky, and of everything at Appledore, Where she sat, she had a low brown reef in sight, jutting out into the sea just below her; and upon this reef the billows were rolling and breaking in a way utterly and wholly entrancing. There was no wind, to speak of, yet there was much more motion in the sea than yesterday; which often happens from the effect of winds that have been at work far away; and the breakers which beat and foamed upon that reef, and indeed upon all the shore, were beyond all telling graceful, beautiful, wonderful, mighty, and changeful. Lois had been there to see the sunrise; now that fairy hour was long past, and the day was in its full bright strength; but still she sat spellbound and watched the waves; watched the colours on the rocks, the brown and the grey; the countless, nameless hues of ocean, and the light on the neighbouring islands, so different now from what they had been a few hours ago.

Now and then a thought or two went to the hotel and its new inhabitants, and passed in review the breakfast that morning. Lois had taken scarce any part in the conversation; her place at table put her at a distance from Mr. Caruthers; and after those few first words she had been able to keep very quiet, as her wish was. But she had listened, and observed. Well, the talk had not been, as to quality, one whit better than what Shampuashuh could furnish every day; nay, Lois thought the advantage of sense and wit and shrewdness was decidedly on the side of her country neighbours; while the staple of talk was nearly the same. A small sort of gossip and remark, with commentary, on other people and other people's doings, past, present, and to come. It had no interest whatever to Lois's mind, neither subject nor treatment. But the _manner_ to-day gave her something to think about. The manner was different; and the manner not of talk only, but of all that was done. Not so did Shampuashuh discuss its neighbours, and not so did Shampuashuh eat bread and butter. Shampuashuh ways were more rough, angular, hurried; less quietness, less grace, whether of movement or speech; less calm security in every action; less delicacy of taste. It must have been good blood in Lois which recognized all this, but recognize it she did; and, as I said, every now and then an involuntary thought of it came over the girl. She felt that she was unlike these people; not of their class or society; she was sure they knew it too, and would act accordingly; that is, not rudely or ungracefully making the fact known, but nevertheless feeling, and showing that they felt, that she belonged to a detached portion of humanity. Or they; what did it matter? Lois did not misjudge or undervalue herself; she knew she was the equal of these people, perhaps more than their equal, in true refinement of feeling and delicacy of perception; she knew she was not awkward in manner; yet she knew, too, that she had not their ease of habit, nor the confidence given by knowledge of the world and all other sorts of knowledge. Her up-bringing and her surroundings had not been like theirs; they had been rougher, coarser, and if of as good material, of far inferior form. She thought with herself that she would keep as much out of their company as she properly could. For there was beneath all this consciousness an unrecognized, or at least unacknowledged, sense of other things in Lois's mind; of Mr. Caruthers' possible feelings, his people's certain displeasure, and her own promise to her grandmother. She would keep herself out of the way; easy at Appledore--

"Have I found you, Miss Lothrop?" said a soft, gracious voice, with a glad accent.