en from a distance. The flat blue and pink kind prefer
to grow close by the shore. There was another darling tree--one on every
lawn nearly--Rose of Sharon. Do you know it? The name alone makes Jack
glad he came to America. And then, the colour of the marshes!--crimson
and orange-gold, with streaks of emerald. Where there weren't marshes,
the meadows were white with Queen Anne's lace. She must have sent a lot
of it to America! Tiger lilies grew wild, dazzling colonies of them, and
from gray rocks ferns spurted and showered. Isn't it charming that a
river called the Mystic should run, or, rather, gently dawdle, through a
world like this? Its mother is the Sound; and perhaps because it's very
historic, it justified its dignity by leading us out of this flowery
fairyland, past stern, faded farmhouses to a wide country of rolling
downs, bathed in silver light--downs whose sides were spread with
forests like dark tracts of shadow.

We passed through Westerly of the granite quarries, and suddenly we
realized that we were in Rhode Island. Don't you like the name "Watch
Hill?" I do. And I liked the place, which "summer people" love. But all
the neighbourhood is enchanting. It doesn't matter _where_ you stay! I
never saw so many flowers, wild and tame: tame hydrangeas, wild grapes,
wild spirea and bayberry, half-tamed, worried-looking sunflowers, with
so much sun they don't know which way to turn. All this within sight of
the Sound, with islands and necks of blue-green land like a door ajar to
the ocean.

It was a fine drive, after Wakefield, along the Narragansett front, the
most countrylike road imaginable, with wild shrubbery on either side,
and then the most ultra-civilized hotels, an army of them on parade,
with the sea for their drill sergeant.

At Saunderstown we took ferry for Newport--a double ferry, but neither
journey was long. A mist floated over the water like the ghost of the
Queen Anne lace we had passed; but we had glimpses of Fort Greble and
Fort Adams. Oh, there's _heaps_ to see at Newport besides the haunts of
the Four Hundred! We landed at last in a dear old town with quaint but
rich-looking houses of retired sea captains and other comfortable folk
who simply don't exist for the eyes of Society, though they no doubt
have a background crowded with brave ancestors. Jack and I meant to stop
at a nice little hotel which exists apologetically; but friends of
Larry's insisted on our staying with them. We should h