arrival, and contemplated the rather limited prospect that was
bounded at one end by the Casino and at the other by the coal-elevator.
"If those smelly little stones out there are 'the Rocks' that people
talk about at such a rate I must confess that I am disappointed in
them"--Mr. Port hastened to assure her that the Rocks were in quite a
different direction--"and if that is the Casino, while it seems a nice
sort of a place, I really think that they might have managed the arch so
as not to have that horrid green house showing under it. And what little
poor affairs the hotels are! Really, Uncle Hutchinson, I don't see what
there is in this little place to make such a fuss about."

"Dorothy," replied Mr. Port, with much solemnity, "you evidently
forget--though I certainly have mentioned the fact to you
repeatedly--that the climate of this portion of Rhode Island is the most
distinctively antibilious climate to be found upon the whole coast of
North America. For persons possessing delicate livers--"

"Oh, bother delicate livers--at least, I beg your pardon, Uncle
Hutchinson," for an expression of such positive pain had come into Mr.
Port's face at this irreverent reference to an organ that he regarded as
sacred that even Dorothy was forced to make some sort of an apology. "Of
course I don't want to bother your poor liver more than it is bothered
anyway; but, you know, I haven't got a liver, and I don't care for
climates a bit. What I mean is: what do people do here to have a good
time?"

"In the morning," replied Mr. Port, "they bathe, and in the afternoon
they drive to the Point. This morning we shall bathe, Dorothy--bathing
is an admirable liver tonic--and this afternoon we shall drive to the
Point."

"Good heavens! Is that all?" exclaimed Miss Lee. "Why, it's worse than
Saratoga. Do you mean to say, Uncle Hutchinson, that people don't dance
here, and don't go yachting, and don't have lunch-parties, and don't
play tennis, and don't even have afternoon teas?"

"I believe that some of these things are done here," replied Mr. Port,
in a tone that implied that such frivolities were quite beyond the lines
of his own personal interests. "Yes," he continued, "I am sure that
all of them are done here now--for the Pier is not what it used to be,
Dorothy. The quiet air of intense respectability that characterized
Narragansett when it was the resort only of a few of the best families
of Philadelphia has departed from it--I fe