the hire of a coach and coachman. Several
livery-stable keepers were in attendance, but nothing was settled, till
I suggested that Aunt Eliza should send for her own carriage. James was
sent back the next day, and returned on Thursday with coach, horses, and
William her coachman. That matter being finished, and the trunks being
unpacked, she decided to take her first bath in the sea, expecting me to
support her through the trying ordeal of the surf. As we were returning
from the beach we met a carriage containing a number of persons with a
family resemblance.

When Aunt Eliza saw them she angrily exclaimed, "Am I to see those
Uxbridges every day?"

Of the Uxbridges this much I knew--that the two brothers Uxbridge were
the lawyers of her opponents in the lawsuit which had existed three or
four years. I had never felt any interest in it, though I knew that it
was concerning a tract of ground in the city which had belonged to
my grandfather, and which had, since his day, become very valuable.
Litigation was a habit of the Huell family. So the sight of the Uxbridge
family did not agitate me as it did Aunt Eliza.

"The sly, methodical dogs! but I shall beat Lemorne yet!"

"How will you amuse yourself then, aunt?"

"I'll adopt some boys to inherit what I shall save from his clutches."

The bath fatigued her so she remained in her room for the rest of the
day; but she kept me busy with a hundred trifles. I wrote for her,
computed interest, studied out bills of fare, till four o'clock came,
and with it a fog. Nevertheless I must ride on the Avenue, and the
carriage was ordered.

"Wear your silk, Margaret; it will just about last your visit
through--the fog will use it up."

"I am glad of it," I answered.

"You will ride every day. Wear the bonnet I bought for you also."

"Certainly; but won't that go quicker in the fog than the dress?"

"Maybe; but wear it."

I rode every day afterward, from four to six, in the black silk, the
mantilla, and the white straw. When Aunt Eliza went she was so on the
alert for the Uxbridge family carriage that she could have had little
enjoyment of the ride. Rocks never were a passion with her, she said,
nor promontories, chasms, or sand. She came to Newport to be washed
with salt-water; when she had washed up to the doctor's prescription she
should leave, as ignorant of the peculiar pleasures of Newport as
when she arrived. She had no fancy for its conglomerate societies, its
litera