n the morning, though we
had practically no run to make, because we wanted nearly all of one day
to potter about Easthampton, seeing sights. But it ended in our having
lunch at Shelter Island. The dining-room of that hotel was big enough to
hold nearly every one in New York, and most of the inhabitants of that
and other large cities seemed to be there. I never saw so many "types"
in my life, as one haughtily says in the Casino at Monte Carlo. Most of
the girls were pretty, but there were people of all sorts of shapes and
sizes; and you can't conceive how the pretty, just right ones, back in
rocking-chairs on the veranda after luncheon, looked at the plain, just
wrong ones who ventured to amble past them in humble quest of other
chairs. Good gracious _me_! I wouldn't have run that gauntlet for any
prize less than winning Jack's love, unless I simply _adored_ my own
clothes and features!

Toward two o'clock we got away, still feeling as if we'd been pawed over
and rejected in a bargain sale. But though eyes stared coldly, flags
waved over the hotel as if in our honour, music played, and breezes
blew. All the same we were quite glad to get to a peaceful, countrylike
ferry which would take us from the island of humiliation to a harbour
where no one would know what had happened--namely, Sag Harbor on the
right or lower claw, according to Jack, or the left leg, according to
me.

There's a perfect flotilla of miniature islands in between the claws,
and people live on them or spend summers on them. I should like to buy
them all, because I couldn't be sure which I should like best, and
whichever I had, I should know the ones I hadn't were nicer.

This was a wee ferryboat, almost as wee as the things you cross lochs
in, in the Highlands of Scotland, but it hadn't so much the air of that
being its day to tip over--which was a comfort. As for Sag Harbor, don't
make the mistake of supposing that it sagged in any untidy way at the
edges, or anything dull like that. Could you call a place dull which was
first heard of historically in connection with a reward for killing
wolves? There's a dear old town not far from the ferry. In its sedate
middle-age it was a great whaling place, and is still crammed full of
sea captains' descendants who are, in their turn, crammed full of
fascinating stories of old days of great adventure, just as their
serene-looking, aged houses are crammed full of shells and coral and
other ocean-borne treasures