mping to some other
hotel to satisfy the serious pleasure of this people.

While Mr. King could not help wondering how all this curious life would
strike Irene--he put his lonesomeness and longing in this way--and what
she would say about it, he endeavored to divert his mind by a study of
the conditions, and by some philosophizing on the change that had come
over American summer life within a few years. In his investigations he
was assisted by Mr. De Long, to whom this social life was absolutely
new, and who was disposed to regard it as peculiarly Yankee--the
staid dissipation of a serious-minded people. King, looking at it
more broadly, found this pasteboard city by the sea one of the most
interesting developments of American life. The original nucleus was
the Methodist camp-meeting, which, in the season, brought here twenty
thousand to thirty thousand people at a time, who camped and picnicked
in a somewhat primitive style. Gradually the people who came here
ostensibly for religious exercises made a longer and more permanent
occupation, and, without losing its ephemeral character, the place
grew and demanded more substantial accommodations. The spot is very
attractive. Although the shore looks to the east, and does not get the
prevailing southern breeze, and the beach has little surf, both water
and air are mild, the bathing is safe and agreeable, and the view of the
illimitable sea dotted with sails and fishing-boats is always pleasing.
A crowd begets a crowd, and soon the world's people made a city larger
than the original one, and still more fantastic, by the aid of paint and
the jigsaw. The tent, however, is the type of all the dwelling-houses.
The hotels, restaurants, and shops follow the usual order of flamboyant
seaside architecture. After a time the Baptists established a camp,
ground on the bluffs on the opposite side of the inlet. The world's
people brought in the commercial element in the way of fancy shops for
the sale of all manner of cheap and bizarre "notions," and introduced
the common amusements. And so, although the camp-meetings do not begin
till late in August, this city of play-houses is occupied the summer
long. The shops and shows represent the taste of the million,
and although there is a similarity in all these popular coast
watering-places, each has a characteristic of its own. The foreigner has
a considerable opportunity of studying family life, whether he lounges
through the narrow, sometim