g round and
round, and the girls in pretty costumes bathing, and sunlight lying so
warm upon the greenish-gray rocks! But the night, following the glorious
after-glow, the red sky, all the level sea, and the little harbor
burnished gold, the rocks purple--oh! the night, when the moon came! Oh,
Irene! Great heavens! why will this world fall into such a sentimental
fit, when all the sweetness and the light of it are away at Bar Harbor!

Love and moonlight, and the soft lapse of the waves and singing? Yes,
there are girls down by the landing with a banjo, and young men singing
the songs of love, the modern songs of love dashed with college slang.
The banjo suggests a little fastness; and this new generation carries
off its sentiment with some bravado and a mocking tone. Presently the
tug Pinafore glides up to the landing, the engineer flings open the
furnace door, and the glowing fire illumines the interior, brings out
forms and faces, and deepens the heavy shadows outside. It is like a
cavern scene in the opera. A party of ladies in white come down to cross
to Star. Some of these insist upon climbing up to the narrow deck, to
sit on the roof and enjoy the moonlight and the cinders. Girls like
to do these things, which are more unconventional than hazardous, at
watering-places.

What a wonderful effect it is, the masses of rock, water, sky, the
night, all details lost in simple lines and forms! On the piazza of
the cottage is a group of ladies and gentlemen in poses more or less
graceful; one lady is in a hammock; on one side is the moonlight, on the
other come gleams from the curtained windows touching here and there
a white shoulder, or lighting a lovely head; the vines running up on
strings and half enclosing the piazza make an exquisite tracery against
the sky, and cast delicate shadow patterns on the floor; all the time
music within, the piano, the violin, and the sweet waves of a woman's
voice singing the songs of Schubert, floating out upon the night. A soft
wind blows out of the west.

The northern part of Appledore Island is an interesting place to wander.
There are no trees, but the plateau is far from barren. The gray rocks
crop out among bayberry and huckleberry bushes, and the wild rose, very
large and brilliant in color, fairly illuminates the landscape, massing
its great bushes. Amid the chaotic desert of broken rocks farther south
are little valleys of deep green grass, gay with roses. On the savage
prec