at a disadvantage. If
a servant 'answers back,' she is called impertinent and discharged; but
I should think it must be rather hard _not_ to answer back to some
mistresses."

"Is that why you are always so very polite to Jane?" asked Gertrude.
Jane was the cook.

"Yes, partly that; and partly because I want Jane to be very polite to
me; and she always is."

"There is the sun at last, I do declare," cried Marian, springing up.
"Hurrah! I should think it was time. Now we shall have some nice
weather, Cannie. Newport is lovely after a fog. It looks so nicely
washed, and so green. Mamma, couldn't we have a long drive this
afternoon in the wagonette, across the beaches and way round by the
windmill? I like that drive so much."

"Yes; and at dinner we will eat Cannie's health in her birthday cake. It
is making now, and Jane has the seventeen little pink candles all ready.
How the fog is rolling away! It will be a charming afternoon."

CHAPTER V.

DOWN TO BEAVER TAIL.

SUNDAY morning brought the fresh, lovely stillness which Sundays in
early summer seem always to possess in Newport. Later in the season the
roll of wheels and the jingle of plated harnesses come to mar this
peacefulness; but till the very end of June it endures, and is one of
the sweet things of the place.

The Joys were at breakfast. It was one of the points in which Mrs. Joy
took most pride, that this meal was served in a special apartment known
as the breakfast-room, and not, as with most families, in the room where
they dined. The breakfast-room was not large, but sumptuous in all its
appointments. A critical taste might have objected that the plush
curtains which shaded the windows were too heavy for summer; that the
begilded wallpaper "swore" a little at its own dado and frieze, as well
as deadened the effect of the pictures which hung against it; and that
the drapery of lace and velvet which veiled the fireplace made a fire
inconvenient and almost impossible, however cold the weather might be.
But a critical taste might have found the same faults with the whole
house. The general effect was of costliness and magnificence; but the
details were at variance, and comfort and homelikeness had been
sacrificed in the effort to make everything fine. There was a library,
with almost no books in it; a ball-room, which was used only for balls,
and looked bare and shut up on ordinary days; a huge drawing-room, full
of costly toys,--tables loaded w