ribbons and big hats, who danced and drank soda-water in the mornings
and danced again in the evenings, or went on drag-rides, and flirted at
all hours.

The small hotels in the country were full of the same girls, chaperoned
by gay mammas, who played whist six hours a day, while their charges
found temperate amusement in walking to the post-office in the cool,
purple dusk, and in dancing--chiefly with each other--after supper.

The proportion of men to girls was the usual summer ratio. Nice
discriminations of extreme age or extreme youth counted for little
against ability to dance. The girl with brothers of almost any size was
popular among her kind, and the girl who "grabbed" was held in cordial
contempt.

Woe be unto the youth who really fell in love. His courtship was the
cynosure of all eyes. Its progress was reported hourly. His presence
was noted and his absence commented upon. His ardor was gauged by the
thermometer of many eyes, and the barometer of hotel partisanship
betrayed the storms of love.

The Neighborhood awoke from its winter sleep. Every house had its
guests, and there were constant gayeties both by day and evening.

The first moon of August, by lighting the dark forest roads, became
responsible for nightly festivities. On one of the earliest evenings of
the month she looked down upon carriages and horsemen making their way
to the French Broad, where Fletcher's Bridge crosses the river. The
Schuylers, with Sydney and John, were in the Oakwood surrey, while
Vandeborough cantered behind to take care of the horses "while de white
folkses eats."

[Illustration: To the French Broad, where Fletcher's Bridge crosses the
river]

The Cotswold party filled a three-seated buckboard and a surrey, and
rejoiced further in outriders. Baron von Rittenheim bestrode his mule.
The Delaunays brought a carriage-load of girls, who laughed a great
deal in the soft, full voices the far South gives her daughters. From
the Hugers' party came scraps of talk about "the City," and the "Isle
of Palms."

There was a wagon-load of people from the Buck Mountain House, too,
friends of the Hugers.

By Sydney's command the picnic fire was built by the river's bank in a
large field, whose openness showed the quick march across the heavens
of the rising moon.

Every one brought a stick to lay on the blazing pile. Bob and one of
the Delaunay girls fetched water from a spring that hid its coolness
under a shelving rock in th