have happened the next day, or maybe the day they left."

He stared upward into the pine boughs, and I said: "Yes, that's so.
I suppose we should be like them if we had the same conditions.
Their whole life is an expectation of something to happen. Men have
the privilege of making things happen--or trying to."

"Oh, I don't know as I want to criticise 'em. As you say, I guess
WE should be just so." He dropped his leg, and bent over as if to
examine the grass; he ended by taking a blade of it between his
teeth before he spoke again, with his head still down. "I don't
want to hurry 'em; I want to give 'em a fair show now we're here,
and I'll let the stock go as long as I can. But I don't see very
much gaiety around."

I laughed. "Why, it's all gaiety, in one way. Saratoga is a
perpetual Fourth of July, we think."

"Oh yes; there's enough going on, and my wife and me we could enjoy
it first rate."

"If the young lady could?" I ventured, with a smile of sympathetic
intelligence.

"Well, yes. You see, we don't know anybody, and I suppose we didn't
take that into account. Well, I suppose it's like this: they
thought it would be easy to get acquainted in the hotel, and
commence having a good time right away. I don't know; my wife had
the idea when they cooked it up amongst 'em that she was to come
with us. But I SWEAR _I_ don't know how to go about it. I can't