The artist and Miss Lamont, in search of the picturesque, had the courage, although the thermometer was in the humor to climb up to ninety degrees, to explore the Baptist encampment.  They were not rewarded by anything new except at the landing, where, behind the bath-houses, the bathing suits were hung out to dry, and presented a comical spectacle, the humor of which seemed to be lost upon all except themselves.  It was such a caricature of humanity!  The suits hanging upon the line and distended by the wind presented the appearance of headless, bloated forms, fat men and fat women kicking in the breeze, and vainly trying to climb over the line.  It was probably merely fancy, but they declared that these images seemed larger, more bloated, and much livelier than those displayed on the Cottage City side.  When travelers can be entertained by trifles of this kind it shows that there is an absence of more serious amusement.  And, indeed, although people were not wanting, and music was in the air, and the bicycle and tricycle stable was well patronized by men and women, and the noon bathing was well attended, it was evident that the life of Cottage City was not in full swing by the middle of July.

The morning on which our tourists took the steamer for Wood’s Holl the sea lay shimmering in the heat, only stirred a little by the land breeze, and it needed all the invigoration of the short ocean voyage to brace them up for the intolerably hot and dusty ride in the cars through the sandy part of Massachusetts.  So long as the train kept by the indented shore the route was fairly picturesque; all along Buzzard Bay and Onset Bay and Monument Beach little cottages, gay with paint and fantastic saw-work explained, in a measure, the design of Providence in permitting this part of the world to be discovered; but the sandy interior had to be reconciled to the deeper divine intention by a trial of patience and the cultivation of the heroic virtues evoked by a struggle for existence, of fitting men and women for a better country.  The travelers were confirmed, however, in their theory of the effect of a sandy country upon the human figure.  This is not a juicy land, if the expression can be tolerated, any more than the sandy parts of New Jersey, and its unsympathetic dryness is favorable to the production—­one can hardly say development of the lean, enduring, flat-chested, and angular style of woman.

In order to reach Plymouth a wait of a couple of hours was necessary at one of the sleepy but historic villages.  There was here no tavern, no restaurant, and nobody appeared to have any license to sell anything for the refreshment of the travelers.  But at some distance from the station, in a two-roomed dwelling-house, a good woman was found who was willing to cook a meal of victuals, as she explained, and a sign on her front door attested, she had a right to do.  What was at the bottom of the local prejudice against letting the wayfaring man have anything to eat and drink,