When Mrs. Cortlandt assembled her party on the steam-tug chartered by her for the excursion, the army was very well represented.  With the exception of the chaperons and a bronzed veteran, who was inclined to direct the conversation to his Indian campaigns in the Black Hills, the company was young, and of the age and temper in which everything seems fair in love and war, and one that gave Mr. King, if he desired it, an opportunity of studying the girl of the period—­the girl who impresses the foreigner with her extensive knowledge of life, her fearless freedom of manner, and about whom he is apt to make the mistake of supposing that this freedom has not perfectly well-defined limits.  It was a delightful day, such as often comes, even in winter, within the Capes of Virginia; the sun was genial, the bay was smooth, with only a light breeze that kept the water sparkling brilliantly, and just enough tonic in the air to excite the spirits.  The little tug, which was pretty well packed with the merry company, was swift, and danced along in an exhilarating manner.  The bay, as everybody knows, is one of the most commodious in the world, and would be one of the most beautiful if it had hills to overlook it.  There is, to be sure, a tranquil beauty in its wooded headlands and long capes, and it is no wonder that the early explorers were charmed with it, or that they lost their way in its inlets, rivers, and bays.  The company at first made a pretense of trying to understand its geography, and asked a hundred questions about the batteries, and whence the Merrimac appeared, and where the Congress was sunk, and from what place the Monitor darted out upon its big antagonist.  But everything was on a scale so vast that it was difficult to localize these petty incidents (big as they were in consequences), and the party soon abandoned history and geography for the enjoyment of the moment.  Song began to take the place of conversation.  A couple of banjos were produced, and both the facility and the repertoire of the young ladies who handled them astonished Irene.  The songs were of love and summer seas, chansons in French, minor melodies in Spanish, plain declarations of affection in distinct English, flung abroad with classic abandon, and caught up by the chorus in lilting strains that partook of the bounding, exhilarating motion of the little steamer.  Why, here is material, thought King, for a troupe of bacchantes, lighthearted leaders of a summer festival.  What charming girls, quick of wit, dashing in repartee, who can pick the strings, troll a song, and dance a brando!

“It’s like sailing over the Bay of Naples,” Irene was saying to Mr. King, who had found a seat beside her in the little cabin; “the guitar-strumming and the impassioned songs, only that always seems to me a manufactured gayety, an attempt to cheat the traveler into the belief that all life is a holiday.  This is spontaneous.”

“Yes, and I suppose the ancient Roman gayety, of which the Neapolitan is an echo, was spontaneous once.  I wonder if our society is getting to dance and frolic along like that of old at Baiae!”