perhaps dissolute life.  The band in the nearly empty hotel parlor, in a mournful mood, was wooing the guests who did not come to a soothing tune, something like China—­“Why do we mourn departed friends?” A procession of lasses coming up the broad walk, advancing out of the shadows of night, was heard afar off as the stalwart singers strode on, chanting in high nasal voices that lovely hymn, which seems to suit the rink as well as the night promenade and the campmeeting: 

   “We shall me—­um um—­we shall me-eet, me-eet—­um um
    —­we shall meet,
   In the sweet by-am-by, by-am-by-um um-by-am-by. 
   On the bu-u-u-u—­on the bu-u-u-u—­on the bu-te-ful shore.”

In the morning this fairy-like settlement, with its flimsy and eccentric architecture, took on more the appearance of reality.  The season was late, as usual, and the hotels were still waiting for the crowds that seem to prefer to be late and make a rushing carnival of August, but the tiny cottages were nearly all occupied.  At 10 A.M. the band was playing in the three-story pagoda sort of tower at the bathing-place, and the three stories were crowded with female spectators.  Below, under the bank, is a long array of bath-houses, and the shallow water was alive with floundering and screaming bathers.  Anchored a little out was a raft, from which men and boys and a few venturesome girls were diving, displaying the human form in graceful curves.  The crowd was an immensely good-humored one, and enjoyed itself.  The sexes mingled together in the water, and nothing thought of it, as old Pepys would have said, although many of the tightly-fitting costumes left less to the imagination than would have been desired by a poet describing the scene as a phase of the ‘comedie humaine.’  The band, having played out its hour, trudged back to the hotel pier to toot while the noon steamboat landed its passengers, in order to impress the new arrivals with the mad joyousness of the place.  The crowd gathered on the high gallery at the end of the pier added to this effect of reckless holiday enjoyment.  Miss Lamont was infected with this gayety, and took a great deal of interest in this peripatetic band, which was playing again on the hotel piazza before dinner, with a sort of mechanical hilariousness.  The rink band opposite kept up a lively competition, grinding out go-round music, imparting, if one may say so, a glamour to existence.  The band is on hand at the pier at four o’clock to toot again, and presently off, tramping to some other hotel to satisfy the serious pleasure of this people.

While Mr. King could not help wondering how all this curious life would strike Irene—­he put his lonesomeness and longing in this way—­and what she would say about it, he endeavored to divert his mind by a study of the conditions, and by some philosophizing on the change that had come over American summer life within a few years.  In his investigations he was assisted by Mr. De Long, to whom this social