Our travelers came out quite as well as could be expected, the artist sleepy and a trifle disorganized, Mr. King in a sort of facetious humor that is more dangerous than grumbling, Mr. De Long yawning and stretching and declaring that he had not slept a wink, while Marion alighted upon the platform unruffled in plumage, greeting the morning like a bird.  There were the usual early loafers at the station, hands deep in pockets, ruminant, listlessly observant.  No matter at what hour of day or night a train may arrive or depart at a country station in America, the loafers are so invariably there in waiting that they seem to be a part of our railway system.  There is something in the life and movement that seems to satisfy all the desire for activity they have.

Even the most sleepy tourist could not fail to be impressed with the exquisite beauty of the scene at Wickford Harbor, where the boat was taken for Newport.  The slow awaking of morning life scarcely disturbed its tranquillity.  Sky and sea and land blended in a tone of refined gray.  The shores were silvery, a silvery light came out of the east, streamed through the entrance of the harbor, and lay molten and glowing on the water.  The steamer’s deck and chairs and benches were wet with dew, the noises in transferring the baggage and getting the boat under way were all muffled and echoed in the surrounding silence.  The sail-boats that lay at anchor on the still silver surface sent down long shadows, and the slim masts seemed driven down into the water to hold the boats in place.  The little village was still asleep.  It was such a contrast; the artist was saying to Marion, as they leaned over the taffrail, to the new raw villages in the Catskills.  The houses were large, and looked solid and respectable, many of them were shingled on the sides, a spire peeped out over the green trees, and the hamlet was at once homelike and picturesque.  Refinement is the note of the landscape.  Even the old warehouses dropping into the water, and the decaying piles of the wharves, have a certain grace.  How graciously the water makes into the land, following the indentations, and flowing in little streams, going in and withdrawing gently and regretfully, and how the shore puts itself out in low points, wooing the embrace of the sea—­a lovely union.  There is no haze, but all outlines are softened in the silver light.  It is like a dream, and there is no disturbance of the repose when a family party, a woman, a child, and a man come down to the shore, slip into a boat, and scull away out by the lighthouse and the rocky entrance of the harbor, off, perhaps, for a day’s pleasure.  The artist has whipped out his sketch-book to take some outlines of the view, and his comrade, looking that way, thinks this group a pleasing part of the scene, and notes how the salt, dewy morning air has brought the color into the sensitive face of the girl.  There are not many such hours in a lifetime, he is also thinking, when nature can be seen in such a charming mood, and for the moment it compensates for the night ride.