a shocking operation for tumor. But she saw no reason for letting that
interfere with her usual summer life, particularly as she felt youth
and opportunity making away from her with terrible strides. Having
a chance to enjoy his society which might never be repeated, fearing
lest his rapid disease should carry him away from before her eyes, she
had concluded to make the most of time, dissemble her suffering, and
endeavor to conceal by art the cold bloodlessness of her face. This
whimsical, worldly heroism happened to strike the gentleman strangely.
He was affected to the point of proposing marriage. At the same time
he perceived with some amazement that his disease had left him: the,
curative spell of the region had wrought its enchantment upon his
system. They were wedded, with roles reversed--he as the protector and
she as the invalid--and were truly happy during the eighteen months
that the lady lived as his wife.

[Illustration: THE EXCURSION HOUSE.]

There are prettier and more innocent stories. Every freckle-nosed girl
from the Alleghany valleys who sweeps with her polka-muslin the
floors of these generous hotels has an idyl of her own, which she is
rehearsing with young Jefferson Jones or little Madison Addison. In
the golden afternoons they ride together--not in the fine turn-outs
supplied by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, but in guiltless
country wagons guided by Jersey Jehus, where close propinquity is a
delightful necessity. Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before
them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary
Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a
day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride
seems like eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the
landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf,