had at all exaggerated the family and social obstacles, nor did it occur to her to doubt Penelope’s affection for her.  But she was not blind.  Being a woman, she comprehended perfectly the indirection of a woman’s approaches, and knew well enough by this time that Penelope, whatever her personal leanings, must feel with her family in regard to this engagement.  And that she, who was apparently her friend, and who had Stanhope’s welfare so much at heart, did so feel was an added reason why Irene was drifting towards a purpose of self-sacrifice.  When she was with Stanhope such a sacrifice seemed as impossible as it would be cruel, but when she was with Mrs. Bartlett Glow, or alone, the subject took another aspect.  There is nothing more attractive to a noble woman of tender heart than a duty the performance of which will make her suffer.  A false notion of duty has to account for much of the misery in life.

It was under this impression that Irene passed the last evening at Saratoga with Stanhope on the piazza of the hotel—­an evening that the latter long remembered as giving him the sweetest and the most contradictory and perplexing glimpses of a woman’s heart.

XIII

RICHFIELD SPRINGS, COOPERSTOWN

After weeks of the din of Strauss and Gungl, the soothing strains of the Pastoral Symphony.  Now no more the kettle-drum and the ceaseless promenade in showy corridors, but the oaten pipe under the spreading maples, the sheep feeding on the gentle hills of Otsego, the carnival of the hop-pickers.  It is time to be rural, to adore the country, to speak about the dew on the upland pasture, and the exquisite view from Sunset Hill.  It is quite English, is it not? this passion for quiet, refined country life, which attacks all the summer revelers at certain periods in the season, and sends them in troops to Richfield or Lenox or some other peaceful retreat, with their simple apparel bestowed in modest fourstory trunks.  Come, gentle shepherdesses, come, sweet youths in white flannel, let us tread a measure on the greensward, let us wander down the lane, let us pass under the festoons of the hop-vines, let us saunter in the paths of sentiment, that lead to love in a cottage and a house in town.

Every watering-place has a character of its own, and those who have given little thought to this are surprised at the endless variety in the American resorts.  But what is even more surprising is the influence that these places have upon the people that frequent them, who appear to change their characters with their surroundings.  One woman in her season plays many parts, dashing in one place, reserved in another, now gay and active, now listless and sentimental, not at all the same woman at Newport that she is in the Adirondack camps, one thing at Bar Harbor and quite another at Saratoga or at Richfield.  Different tastes, to be sure, are suited at different resorts, but fashion sends a steady procession of the same people on the round of all.