Love and moonlight, and the soft lapse of the waves and singing?  Yes, there are girls down by the landing with a banjo, and young men singing the songs of love, the modern songs of love dashed with college slang.  The banjo suggests a little fastness; and this new generation carries off its sentiment with some bravado and a mocking tone.  Presently the tug Pinafore glides up to the landing, the engineer flings open the furnace door, and the glowing fire illumines the interior, brings out forms and faces, and deepens the heavy shadows outside.  It is like a cavern scene in the opera.  A party of ladies in white come down to cross to Star.  Some of these insist upon climbing up to the narrow deck, to sit on the roof and enjoy the moonlight and the cinders.  Girls like to do these things, which are more unconventional than hazardous, at watering-places.

What a wonderful effect it is, the masses of rock, water, sky, the night, all details lost in simple lines and forms!  On the piazza of the cottage is a group of ladies and gentlemen in poses more or less graceful; one lady is in a hammock; on one side is the moonlight, on the other come gleams from the curtained windows touching here and there a white shoulder, or lighting a lovely head; the vines running up on strings and half enclosing the piazza make an exquisite tracery against the sky, and cast delicate shadow patterns on the floor; all the time music within, the piano, the violin, and the sweet waves of a woman’s voice singing the songs of Schubert, floating out upon the night.  A soft wind blows out of the west.

The northern part of Appledore Island is an interesting place to wander.  There are no trees, but the plateau is far from barren.  The gray rocks crop out among bayberry and huckleberry bushes, and the wild rose, very large and brilliant in color, fairly illuminates the landscape, massing its great bushes.  Amid the chaotic desert of broken rocks farther south are little valleys of deep green grass, gay with roses.  On the savage precipices at the end one may sit in view of an extensive sweep of coast with a few hills, and of other rocky islands, sails, and ocean-going steamers.  Here are many nooks and hidden corners to dream in and make love in, the soft sea air being favorable to that soft-hearted occupation.

One could easily get attached to the place, if duty and Irene did not call elsewhere.  Those who dwell here the year round find most satisfaction when the summer guests have gone and they are alone with freaky nature.  “Yes,” said the woman in charge of one of the cottages,” I’ve lived here the year round for sixteen years, and I like it.  After we get fixed up comfortable for winter, kill a critter, have pigs, and make my own sassengers, then there ain’t any neighbors comin’ in, and that’s what I like.”

VII

BAR HARBOR

The attraction of Bar Harbor is in the union of mountain and sea; the mountains rise in granite majesty right out of the ocean.  The traveler expects to find a repetition of Mount Athos rising six thousand feet out of the AEgean.