There were the usual early loafers at the station, hands
deep in pockets, ruminant, listlessly observant. No matter at what hour
of day or night a train may arrive or depart at a country station in
America, the loafers are so invariably there in waiting that they seem
to be a part of our railway system. There is something in the life and
movement that seems to satisfy all the desire for activity they have.

Even the most sleepy tourist could not fail to be impressed with the
exquisite beauty of the scene at Wickford Harbor, where the boat was
taken for Newport. The slow awaking of morning life scarcely disturbed
its tranquillity. Sky and sea and land blended in a tone of refined
gray. The shores were silvery, a silvery light came out of the east,
streamed through the entrance of the harbor, and lay molten and glowing
on the water. The steamer's deck and chairs and benches were wet with
dew, the noises in transferring the baggage and getting the boat
under way were all muffled and echoed in the surrounding silence. The
sail-boats that lay at anchor on the still silver surface sent down long
shadows, and the slim masts seemed driven down into the water to hold
the boats in place. The little village was still asleep. It was such
a contrast; the artist was saying to Marion, as they leaned over the
taffrail, to the new raw villages in the Catskills. The houses were
large, and looked solid and respectable, many of them were shingled on
the sides, a spire peeped out over the green trees, and the hamlet
was at once homelike and picturesque. Refinement is the note of the
landscape. Even the old warehouses dropping into the water, and the
decaying piles of the wharves, have a certain grace. How graciously the
water makes into the land, following the indentations, and flowing in
little streams, going in and withdrawing gently and regretfully, and
how the shore puts itself out in low points, wooing the embrace of the
sea--a lovely union. There is no haze, but all outlines are softened in
the silver light. It is like a dream, and there is no disturbance of the
repose when a family party, a woman, a child, and a man come down to the
shore, slip into a boat, and scull away out by the lighthouse and the
rocky entrance of the harbor, off, perhaps, for a day's pleasure. The
artist has whipped out his sketch-book to take some outlines of the
view, and his comrade, looking that way, thinks this group a pleasing
part of the scene, and notes