"I hate girls, they talk so silly," said Willie, again bringing the laugh on himself.

CHAPTER XVIII.-_At Newport._

Mr. George Mechlin and traveling companions had a most delightful journey across the continent in spite of the hot weather.

Mr. Lawrence Mechlin and wife came to New York to meet George's bride and her sister and take them to Long Branch, where they had been sojourning for the last two months.

Mrs. Lawrence Mechlin was most favorably impressed with her nephew's wife and her sister. The two young beauties captivated her at once. She was enthusiastic.

"My dear," said she after dinner, addressing Elvira, "before I saw you and your sister I had been deliberating in my mind whether we should not go directly to our cottage in Newport and spend the remainder of the summer there. But now I think we had better go to Long Branch first, and then, unless you wish to visit Saratoga, we will go to Newport. How will that do?" She looked at George.

George smiled. He knew his aunt must be much pleased to put herself to the trouble of this traveling in hot weather. He replied:

"I am sure these young ladies will be most happy to follow you, aunt."

"Don't you all get too tired. And this reminds me that people who have been in the cars for ten days should have some rest. The day will be cool to-morrow; we need not go back to Long Branch until the day after,"

said the senior Mechlin.

"We do not intend going to-morrow. We have something to do in town yet,"

said Mrs. Mechlin.

"Some shopping, I suppose," Mr. Lawrence observed.

"Exactly," his wife assented.

After Mrs. Mechlin accompanied Elvira and Mercedes to their respective apartments, she returned to the library, where her husband and nephew were engaged in conversation. There was in Mrs. Mechlin's step and manner a degree of pleased elasticity, an amiable buoyancy of contented alacrity, which betokened that her mind was in a state of subdued pleasurable excitement which was to her very enjoyable. She came to George and kissed him twice, saying:

"I must repeat my kiss and congratulations, dear George. Your wife is perfection. Where in the world did such beauties grow? I assure you I am perfectly carried away by those two girls. No wonder you were so impatient to get married. They will be the rage next winter, and I shall give several dinners and receptions in honor of your wife, of course."

"You are always so kind to me, dear aunt."

"No more than I ought to be, but this time pleasure and duty will go together. I know I shall be proud to present my beautiful niece to New York society. Her manners are exquisite. She is lovely. She will be greatly admired, and justly so."

"You will have to arrange for your parties and dinners to be in December and February, because George is going to Washington in January, and the young ladies will take that opportunity to visit the Capital with him,"

said Mr. Mechlin, senior.

"That is a pity. Couldn't they go in December?"

"No, because George's business is with the Attorney General, and he wrote to me that he would not be ready until January. However, January is six months off yet. For the present, you have enough on your hands with your plans for the summer."

"That is very true. We will order some summer things to be made immediately. But I feel quite sure that we can find imported dresses ready made that will suit. I saw some lovely batists and grenadines at Arnold & Constable's, just from Paris, also beautiful embroidered muslins at Stewart's. We will see to-morrow and be ready to return the day after."

Life at Long Branch in the Mechlin cottage was very delightful to Elvira and Mercedes. When they had been there about two weeks, Mr. Robert Gunther appeared on the scene, and next day Mr. Arthur Selden followed.

As they were old friends of the Mechlins, Mrs. Mechlin thought it was a natural thing that these two young gentlemen, on their return from their travels, should come to see her at Long Branch.

"In a day or two we are going to Newport, young gentlemen," she said.

"You had better join our party and we'll all go together."

"I shall be most happy. My mother and sister have been with friends in the White Mountains, but will be at Newport next week, so this arrangement will suit me," said Gunther.

"It will suit me, also, as I promised my mother and sisters I should be at Newport in two weeks. Saratoga is too hot for me. I left them there under father's care. He likes Saratoga," Mr. Selden said.

If their sojourn at Long Branch had seemed so delightful to Elvira and Mercedes, their pleasures increased ten-fold at Newport. The Mechlin villa, shaded by tall elms and poplars, and surrounded by shrubbery and flowers, with a beautiful lawn and fountains in front, facing the ocean, and well-kept walks and arbors in different places on the grounds, was certainly a charming abode, fit to please the most fastidious taste.

Then the drives, croquet playing, boat sailing and promenades, were also much enjoyed by our two little Californians. In the evenings, music and dancing would add variety to their pleasures, until such life seemed to them too charming to be real.

"And is this life repeated every summer, year after year?" asked Mercedes one evening as in the coming twilight she was sitting with Mr.

Bob Gunther in a cozy bower of roses located on a little knoll in the grounds of the Gunther villa. They were looking at the gay equipages which drove by. Gunther sighed as he answered.

"Do you like this life?"

"Very much, but perhaps because it is a novelty to me. However, I am never tired of things that I once like, so I suppose I would like it always."

She did not look at Gunther; her attention was all given to the beautiful carriages driving by. If she had looked at him she would have seen the intensity of his passion in the workings of his features. For a moment the struggle with himself was terrible; but controlling his voice all he could, he said:

"You can have this life if you wish, and continue in the winters in a beautiful residence in New York or in Paris, should you desire it. You know it."

"No, I do not. I have no fairy god-mother to give me palaces. Come, let us go. Where is everybody?" said she, hurrying out of the arbor, looking about the grounds for Elvira and Miss Gunther, who had but a moment before been near her. "Ah! there they are; let us go to them."

"Do I frighten you? or am I tiresome?" said he, pale to the lips, following her.

"Neither; but young ladies who-who are-I mean any young lady, should not have such _tete-a-tetes_ with fascinating young gentlemen in rosy bowers."

"Young ladies who are-what?"

"Who are judicious."

"Were you not going to say 'who are engaged?'"

"If I had, I might not have said the truth, _strictly_."

"Oh, in Heaven's name, tell me the truth! Are you engaged?"

"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell thee no lies."

"You are cruel; you are trifling with me!"

She stopped and looked up quickly into his eyes. For a moment she hesitated, then resolutely said:

"Mr. Gunther, I like you very much. Don't talk to me like this. I want to find pleasure in your society, but I shall not if you talk so to me.

I am not and have never been cruel, and it never entered my head to trifle with you-never!"

"Forgive me this time. I shall never offend again."

He looked so distressed that Mercedes felt very sorry for him. She would have comforted him if she could. They walked in silence a few steps, but as he still looked pale, she did not wish the other ladies to see him.