that one or two passing
ladies stopped their salutations in mid career, and actually looked
after them in amazement at their attitude, as who should say, "What a
very mixed society!"

So they drove on,--meeting four-in-hands, and tandems, and donkey-carts,
and a goat-cart, and basket-wagons driven by pretty girls, with
uncomfortable youths in or out of livery behind. They met, had they but
known it, many who were aiming at notoriety, and some who had it; many
who looked contented with their lot, and some who actually were so. They
met some who put on courtesy and grace with their kid gloves, and laid
away those virtues in their glove-boxes afterwards; while to others
the mere consciousness of kid gloves brought uneasiness, redness of the
face, and a general impression of being all made of hands. They met the
four white horses of an ex-harness-maker, and the superb harnesses of an
ex-horse-dealer. Behind these came the gayest and most plebeian equipage
of all, a party of journeymen carpenters returning from their work in a
four-horse wagon. Their only fit compeers were an Italian opera-troupe,
who were chatting and gesticulating on the piazza of the great hotel,
and planning, amid jest and laughter, their future campaigns. Their work
seemed like play, while the play around them seemed like work. Indeed,
most people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in inverse ratio to their
income list.

As our youths and maidens passed the hotel, a group of French naval
officers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable
gold lace dangling in festoons from their shoulders,--"topsail halyards"
the American midshipmen called them. Philip looked hard at one of these
gentlemen.

"I have seen that young fellow before," said he, "or his twin brother.
But who can swear to the personal identity of a Frenchman?"

IV. AUNT JANE DEFINES HER POSITION.

THE next morning had that luminous morning haze, not quite dense
enough to be called a fog, which is often so lovely in Oldport. It was
perfectly still; the tide swelled and swelled till it touched the edge
of the green lawn behind the house, and seemed ready to submerge the
slender pier; the water looked at first like glass, till closer gaze
revealed long sinuous undulations, as if from unseen water-snakes
beneath. A few rags of storm-cloud lay over the half-seen hills beyond
the bay, and behind them came little mutterings of thunder, now
here, now there, as if some wil