The main street of pretty Digby runs close to the water. The bluff¹ is crowned by a grassy² sward and a row of well-grown trees, with a driveway between these and the buildings on the further side.  
“Oh! how lovely and how different from our own seaside places, with their hot sands, board walks, and cityfied shops. I hope no board walk will ever spoil this charming boulevard!” exclaimed a lady, who stood at a hotel window overlooking Annapolis Basin, on whose shore nestles the little town.
 
“Yes, Mamma! Aren’t you glad you came?” asked Monty Stark³, entering the room and joining her at the window.
 
“I hope I shall be, dear. I’m a little anxious about your friends. I should greatly object, myself, to having people force themselves upon a touring party I had organized. But you must understand, Montmorency, that if I discover the slightest sign of objection to us, I shall go on my own way and you will have to go with me. I—I am not accustomed to being patronized or—no matter. I [Pg 125]came to please you, my precious boy, and I hope it will be all right. Let me see if you are quite correct. I suppose the guests wear evening dress for dinner as in other civilized⁴ places. Though—it looks more like a country village yonder, than a real watering place.”
 
“But, Mamma, it is a country village. Nothing else, the Judge says. And somehow I feel rather silly in this rig. I saw the Judge a moment ago and he wasn’t in evening clothes, but he’s a ‘brick’ all right!”
 
“Montmorency! How can you use such dreadful expressions?”
 
“Easy as preaching, chere Maman!”
 
“I’m afraid your associates at Brentnor are not all of them as refined and exclusive as I had supposed. I’ve observed other phrases that I do not like. One of them was, I think, ‘Shucks!’”
 
“Yes, I reckon you did. I didn’t catch that from a Brentnor, though, but from Jim Barlow.”
 
“Who is he, pray?”
 
“Blest if I can tell or he either. He hails from a poorhouse. He was ‘bound out’ to a woman truck farmer. He’s been ‘taken up’ by Mrs. Cecil Somerset-Calvert, of Baltimore, and lots of other places. A lady that’s so rich she has homes in ever so many different parts of the country. But better than that he’s a ‘trump,’ a life-saver, a scholar, and—a gentleman! One of ‘Nature’s’ you know. Would like to have you meet him because he’s my present chum; that is, he would be if—if we lived [Pg 126]in the same house and could be. But unfortunately, he has agreed to do ‘chores’ for a parson in payment for his instruction in Greek and all the ‘ologies.’ He’s off on a tramp now, ‘hoofing it,’ as he elegantly expresses it, for a vacation. He’s taken the parson and a couple of dogs along for company. The parson’s a trotting⁵ tramper, too. Maybe you’ve read some of his delightful⁶ articles in the magazines. Eh? What? Too much for you, Mamma? Well, never mind. I’ll quit now, for there goes the last bell for dinner. Allow me?”
 
Bowing and offering his arm Monty conducted his richly clad mother toward the dining-room, whither a crowd of tourists were hastening. These were garbed⁷ in any sort of comfortable traveling clothes, the women mostly in white shirt-waists such as Mrs. Stark would have disdained⁸ even for morning wear at home. The men looked as if they had just come from a dusty train, a too-fragrant⁹ fishing boat, or a rough camp in the woods; and at the foot of the stairs the fashionable Mrs. Stark paused in a sort of dismay.
 
For an instant, too, she had an odd feeling as if it were she who had made a mistake, not those groups of merry, hungry holiday-makers, who elbowed one another good naturedly, in order to find a seat at the crowded tables. Mrs. Stark wasn’t used to elbowing or being elbowed, and she gathered her silken train in her hand to preserve it from contact with the oil-cloth covered floor of the lobby, while her face gathered an expression of real alarm.
 
[Pg 127]“Why, my dear son! We can’t stay here, you know! It is simply impossible to hobnob with such—such queer persons. We must seek another hotel at once. I’ll step into that room yonder which is the ‘parlor’ probably, and you summon the proprietor¹⁰. I—I am not accustomed to this want of courtesy and—indeed, dear, I am greatly displeased¹¹ with you. You painted the trip in such glowing colors I—”
 
“But, Mamma, don’t the colors glow? Did you ever see anything in your life lovelier than this glimpse of the Annapolis Basin, with the moonlight on it, the great peaks and cliffs beyond? I’m sorry if you’re disappointed but you didn’t seem to be up in your room, looking out. As for changing hotels we’d simply ‘hop out of the frying pan into the fire,’ since this is the best one in the town. Else Judge Breckenridge wouldn’t have come here.”
 
“Monty, dear! Such phrases again! Is that another lesson learned from the poorhouse boy?”
 
“No, indeedy! I caught that from Alfaretta Babcock. She of the retroussé nose and simple speech. A royal sort of girl, too, is Alfy; first of the alphabetical¹² Babcock sisters. The second is—But come, Mamma. We’re in for it and I don’t want to go to bed hungry, even if you do. I’m afraid, Mother mine, that there’s been too much ‘de luxe’ in your life and I shall have to reconstruct you.”
 
His mirthful face provoked her to laughter despite her real vexation and fortunately, at that [Pg 128]moment, Mrs. Hungerford entered the room and advanced to Mrs. Stark with extended hand and the warmest of greetings.
 
“This is Monty’s mother, I’m sure. I am Molly’s Auntie Lu. We exist I fancy, for our respective youngsters and mine discovered you through the doorway¹³ of the dining-room and commissioned me to fetch you. We’ve had seats reserved for you at our table in the corner and I apologize for not hunting you up earlier. The truth is we were out driving until the last moment and were greatly hurried ourselves. So, of course, we were none of us here when the train came in and I did not know you had arrived. Shall we go now? You will find that people grow desperately¹⁴ hungry when they first come into this bracing¹⁵ air, and with the best intentions in the world, the proprietor isn’t always able to provide enough for such clamorous¹⁶ appetites. My brother says that explains the rather rude crowding to get ‘first table,’ and that our remedy lies in doing a bit of crowding ourselves. I rather enjoy it, already, though we only came here yesterday. Did you have a pleasant trip?”
 
“No, I did not. I was never on such a poor steamer before. Fortunately I wasn’t ill and it’s not a long sail from Boston across. Is it really true, as Montmorency tells me, that there is no better hotel than this?” returned the other, rising to follow Auntie Lu.
 
 
Since Monty had said that he was hungry, of course, she would stay for that one meal and let him [Pg 129]get comfortable. Afterward—she would follow her own judgment¹⁷.
 
But she, also, was gently bred and born, and despite a lack of plain common sense was an agreeable person in the main. She had responded to Mrs. Hungerford’s greeting with a correct society manner; and now, as she followed toward the dining-room, she bestowed¹⁸ upon that lady’s back a keenly critical survey. She saw that Aunt Lucretia was well but simply gowned in white. She was immaculately fresh, and fragrant from her bath with a faint odor of violets about her that pleased rather than offended nostrils¹⁹ which habitually²⁰ objected to “perfumery” as something common and vulgar.
 
Her gown might have been expensive but did not look so and was eminently²¹ more fit for an evening dinner in a tourists’ hotel than the elaborate costume of Mrs. Stark.
 
Though she had been but twenty-four hours in the place, Auntie Lu had already adapted herself to it completely, and smiled away the services of a rather frightened head-waitress new to her business, as she threaded her way toward that distant corner of the crowded room where her own table overlooked the water.
 
A little hush²² fell over the adjoining tables as Mrs. Stark’s elegance²³ bore down upon them in her majestic²⁴ way. She was portly and heavy-motioned, as poor Monty was apt to be when he should arrive at her age; and chairs had to be [Pg 130]drawn in closer, feet tucked under them, and heads bent²⁵ forward as she passed by.
 
As for the youth in her train misery²⁶ and mortification²⁷ shone on his chubby²⁸ countenance²⁹. For a boy he had been absurdly fond of dress, but he had also a keen sense of what was fit and he knew his present costume was not that. However, all this trivial unpleasantness passed, as the entering pair were greeted by the rest of the party. The Judge still wore a business suit but his manner, as he rose to be presented to Mrs. Stark was so polished and correct that her spirits revived, thinking:
 
“Well, the people are all right, if the place isn’t.”
 
She acknowledged Miss Isobel’s greeting with a slight haughtiness³⁰, such as she felt was due a social inferior. Upon Molly she bestowed an admiring smile and glance; and upon Dorothy a rather perfunctory one. The girl might also be “poorhouse born” for aught anybody knew, and from contact with such her “precious lamb” was to be well protected. She intended to see to it that further intercourse³¹ between her son and that “tramp,” Jim Barlow, should be prevented also; and while she marvelled³² that “the Breckenridges” should make much of the girl, as apparently³³ they did, it wasn’t necessary that she should do the same. Monty had told her all about each member of the party so that Dorothy’s story was familiar to her. The lad had concluded his recital³⁴ with the words:
 
“She’s the bravest, sincerest girl in the world.[Pg 131] She’s braver than Molly Breckenridge, and I like her immensely. All the boys at Brentnor think she’s fine, and we all hope some grand romance will come out of the facts of her parentage. She doesn’t come of any illiterate³⁵, common stock, Mamma. You may be sure of that. So I hope you’ll be nice and not—not too Stark-ish toward her, please!”
 
So this was the girl who had saved life. Of that grim teacher opposite and, later, of a farmer’s son out of a tree where he was hanging. Very creditable, of course, though it couldn’t affect herself, Mrs. Ebenezer Vavasour-Stark, and she fixed³⁶ her attention elsewhere.
 
It was due to the Judge that she altered her opinion of her present quarters so far as to decide upon remaining in them; and to make the best of the whole trip, “which you know is but a prolonged picnic. As for air and health and strength, you could find nothing better the world over, my dear Madam,” he had said.
 
After that first dinner also she had a talk with her son; which resulted in his displaying a common sense that did him credit.
 
“Look here, Mamma. Let’s just pack all these over-fine togs in the trunks and leave them here to be sent to us when wanted. All we shall need, I fancy, is a suit-case a-piece with the plainest things we own. Even that ‘fancy’ hunter’s suit I bought is ridiculous. The Judge uses the oldest sort of things—‘regular rags,’ Molly says; and I—I may be a fool but I don’t like to look like one! [Pg 132]Do it, Mamma, to please me. And let’s put our ‘society’ manners into the trunks with the clothes. Let’s live, for these few weeks, as if we were real poor—as poor as Dolly or Miss Greatorex. I don’t believe even that lady has any money to speak of and as for Dorothy, she hasn’t a cent. Not a cent.”
 
“How do you know that, Montmorency? Are you on such intimate terms with that foundling that she confides³⁷ the state of her finances to you? If so, she is probably hinting for presents.”
 
“Umm. Might be. Didn’t look like it though when I proposed just now to buy her one of those Indian baskets on sale in the lobby. She wouldn’t take one, though Molly took all I wanted to give—and more. That girl hasn’t any scruples³⁸ about having a good time and letting anybody pay that wants to.”
 
“That, son, is a proof of good birth and breeding, she has always been accustomed to having her wants supplied and takes it as a matter of course. But, Monty darling, you must be good to Mamma. She doesn’t feel as if she had come to a ‘Paradise of a place,’ as you told me I would find it. Yet if it pleases you to see your mother dressed like a servant why, of course, for your sake I’ll consent. But I warn you, no skylarking with underbred people or I shall take you straight home.”
 ............