Many of the same boarders come year after year, and these tremble at the
suggestion of a change for the better in Jocelyn's. The landlord has
always believed that Jocelyn's would come up, some day, when times got
better. He believes that the narrow-gauge railroad from New Leyden
--arrested on paper at the disastrous moment when the fortunes of
Jocelyn's felt the general crash--will be pushed through yet; and every
summer he promises that next summer they are going to have a steam-launch
running twice a day from Leyden Harbor. But at present his house is
visited once a day by a barge, as the New England coast-folks call the
vehicle in which they convey city boarders to and from the station, and
the old frequenters of the place hope that the 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