Part 5 (1/2)

”There is Pulpit Rock,” said Gertrude, stopping where a shelving path slanted down toward a great square ma.s.s of stone, which was surrounded on three sides by water. ”Would you like to go down and sit on top for a little while? I am rather tired.”

”Oh, I should like to so much.”

Down they scrambled accordingly, and in another moment were on top of the big rock. It was almost as good as being at sea; for when they turned their backs to the sh.o.r.e nothing could be seen but water and sails and flying birds, and nothing heard but the incessant plash and dash of the waves below.

”Oh, how perfectly splendid!” cried Cannie. ”I should think you would come here every day, Gertrude.”

”Yes, that's what people always say when they first come,” said the experienced Gertrude. ”But I a.s.sure you we don't come every day, and we don't want to. Why, sometimes last summer I didn't see the Cliffs for weeks and weeks together. It's nice enough now when there are not many people here; but after the season begins and the crowd, it isn't nice at all. You see all sorts of people that you don't know, and--and--well--it isn't pleasant.”

”I can't think what you mean,” declared Cannie, opening her eyes with amazement. ”I'd just as soon there were twenty people on this rock, if I needn't look at them and they didn't talk to me. The sea would be just the same.”

”You'll feel differently when you've been in Newport awhile. It's not at all the fas.h.i.+on to walk on the Cliffs now except on Sunday, and not at this end of them even then. A great many people won't bathe, either,--they say it has grown so common. Why, it used to be the thing to walk down here,--all the nicest people did it; and now you never see anybody below Narragansett Avenue except ladies'-maids and butlers, and people who are boarding at the hotels and don't know any better.”

”How funny it seems!” remarked Candace, half to herself, with her eyes on the distance, which was rapidly closing in with mist.

”What is funny?”

”Oh, I was--I was only thinking how funny it is that there should be a fas.h.i.+on about coming down to such a beautiful place as this.”

”I don't see how it is funny.”

”Yes,” persisted Candace, who, for all her shyness, had ideas and opinions of her own; ”because the Cliffs are so old and have always been here, and I suppose some of the people who make it the fas.h.i.+on not to walk upon them have only just come to Newport.”

”I really think you are the queerest girl I ever saw,” said Gertrude.

A long silence ensued. Each of the two girls was thinking her own thoughts. The thickening on the horizon meanwhile was increasing. Thin films of vapor began to blow across the sky. The wind stirred and grew chill; the surf on the beach broke with a low roar which had a menacing sound. Suddenly a wall of mist rose and rolled rapidly inland, blotting out all the blue and the smile of sky and sea.

”Gracious! here's the fog,” cried Gertrude, ”and I do believe it's going to rain. We must hurry home. I rather think mamma's storm is coming, after all.”

CHAPTER IV.

THE MANUAL OF PERFECT GENTILITY.

MRS. GRAY'S storm had indeed come. All the next day it rained, and the day after it rained harder, and on the third day came a thick fog; so it was not till the very end of the week that Newport lay again in clear suns.h.i.+ne.

The first of the wet days Cannie spent happily in the society of Miss Evangeline and Mr. Hiawatha, two new acquaintances of whom she felt that she could scarcely see enough. Marian found her sitting absorbed on the staircase bench, and after peeping over her shoulder at the pictures for a while, begged her to read aloud. It was the first little bit of familiar acquaintance which any of the younger members of the Gray family had volunteered, and Candace was much pleased.

Marian was not yet quite fourteen, and was still very much of a child at heart and in her ways. Her ”capable” little face did not belie her character. She was a born housekeeper, always tidying up and putting away after other people. Everything she attempted she did exactly and well. She was never so happy as when she was allowed to go into the kitchen to make mola.s.ses candy or try her hand at cake; and her cake was almost always good, and her candy ”pulled” to admiration. She was an affectionate child, with a quick sense of fun, and a droll little coaxing manner, which usually won for her her own way, especially from her father, who delighted in her and never could resist Marian's saucy, caressing appeals. It required all Mrs. Gray's firm, judicious discipline to keep her from being spoiled.

Georgie, who was nearly nineteen, seemed younger in some respects than Gertrude, who was but three months older than Candace. Georgie, too, had a good deal of the housekeeper's instinct, but she was rather dreamy and puzzle-headed, and with the best intentions in the world was often led into sc.r.a.pes and difficulties from her lack of self-reliance, and the easy temper which enabled any one who was much with her to gain an influence over her mind.

Gertrude--but it is less easy to tell what Gertrude was. In fact, it was less important just then to find out what she was than what she was likely to be. Gertrude reminded one of an unripe fruit. The capacities for sweetness and delightfulness were there within her, but all in a crude, undeveloped state. No one could predict as yet whether she would ripen and become mellow and pleasant with time, or remain always half-hard and half-sour, as some fruits do. Meanwhile she was the prettiest though not the most popular of the Gray sisters, and she ruled over Georgie's opinions and ideas with the power which a stronger and more selfish character always has over a weaker and more pliable one.

Marian was less easily influenced. She and Gertrude often came into collision; and it was in part the habit of disputing Gertrude's mandates which led her to seek out Candace on that rainy afternoon. In the privacy of her own room that morning, Gertrude had made some very unflattering remarks about their newly arrived relative.

”It's really quite dreadful to have a girl like that come to spend the whole summer with one,” she said to Georgie. ”She hasn't a bit of style, and her clothes are so queer and old-timey; and she's always lived up on that horrid farm, and hasn't an idea beyond it. Everything surprises her so, and she makes such a fuss over it. You should have heard her yesterday when we were out walking; she said the Cliffs had been there always, and some of the fas.h.i.+onable people had only just come.”

”What _did_ she mean?”