station will
never be nearer Jocelyn's than at present. Some of them are rich enough
to afford a sojourn at more fashionable resorts; but most of them are
not, though they are often people of polite tastes and of aesthetic
employments. They talk with slight of the large watering-places, and
probably they would not like them, though it is really economy that
inspires their passion for Jocelyn's with most of them, and they know
of the splendid weariness of Newport mostly by hearsay. New arrivals
are not favored, but there are not often new arrivals at Jocelyn's. The
chief business of the barge is to bring fresh meat for the table and
the gaunt bag which contains the mail; for in the first flush of
the enterprise the place was made a post-office, and the landlord is
postmaster; he has the help of the lady-boarders in his official duties.

Scattered about among the young birches there are several of those
pine frames known as shells, within easy walk of the hotel, where their
inmates board. They are picturesque interiors, and are on informal terms
with the public as to many domestic details. The lady of the house,
doing her back hair at her dressing-room glass, is divided from her
husband, smoking at the parlor fire-place, only by a partition of
unlathed studding. The arrest of development in these shells is
characteristic of everything about the place. None of the improvements
invented since the hard times began have been added to Jocelyn's;
lawntennis is still unknown there; but there is a croquet-ground before
the hotel, where the short, tough grass is kept in tolerable order. The
wickets are pretty rusty, and it is usually the children who play; but
toward the close of a certain, afternoon a young lady was pushing the
balls about there. She seemed to be going over a game just played,
and trying to trace the cause of her failure. She made bad shots, and
laughed at her blunders. Another young lady drooped languidly on a
bench at the side of the croquet-ground, and followed her movements with
indifference.

"I don't see how you did it, Louise," panted the player; "it's
astonishing how you beat me."

The lady on the bench made as if to answer, but ended by coughing
hoarsely.

"Oh, dear child!" cried the first, dropping her mallet, and running to
her. "You ought to have put on your shawl!" She lifted the knit shawl
lying beside her on the bench, and laid it across the other's shoulders,
and drew it close about her neck