"Did Mr. Carter let you have them?" Montague asked; and the other
smiled a dry smile.

"We have them," he said. "And now the thing for you to do is to have
your own surveyors go over the ground. I imagine that when you get
their reports, the proposition will look very different."

These were the instructions which came in a letter from Price the
next day; and with the help of Andrews Montague made the necessary
arrangements, and the next night he left for New York.

He arrived upon a Friday afternoon. He found that Alice had departed
for her visit to the Prentices', and that Oliver was in Newport,
also. There was an invitation from Mrs. Prentice to him to join
them; as Price was away, he concluded that he would treat himself to
a rest, and accordingly took an early train on Saturday morning.

Montague's initiation into Society had taken place in the
winter-time, and he had yet to witness its vacation activities. When
Society's belles and dames had completed a season's round of
dinner-parties and dances, they were more or less near to nervous
prostration, and Newport was the place which they had selected to
retire to and recuperate. It was an old-fashioned New England town,
not far from the entrance to Long Island Sound, and from a village
with several grocery shops and a tavern, it had been converted by a
magic touch of Society into the most famous and expensive resort in
the world. Estates had been sold there for as much as a dollar a
square foot, and it was nothing uncommon to pay ten thousand a month
for a "cottage."