It was not until half-past three o’clock Monday that the new one came from New York, and it was five when we left for the Pier.

The road from Providence to Narragansett Pier is something more than fair, considerably less than fine; it is hilly and in places quite sandy.  For some distance out of Providence it was dusty and worn rough by heavy travel.

It was seven o’clock, dark and quite cold, when we drew up in front of Green’s Inn.

The season was over, the Pier quite deserted.  A summer resort after the guests have gone is a mournful, or a delightful, place—­ as one views it.  To the gregarious individual who seeks and misses his kind, the place is loneliness itself after the flight of the gay birds who for a time strutted about in gorgeous plumage twittering the time away; to the man who loves to be in close and undisturbed contact with nature, who enjoys communing with the sea, who would be alone on the beach and silent by the waves, the flight of the throng is a relief.  There is a selfish satisfaction in passing the great summer caravansaries and seeing them closed and silent; in knowing that the splendor of the night will not be marred by garish lights and still more garish sounds.

Were it not for the crowd, Narragansett Pier would be an ideal spot for rest and recreation.  The beach is perfect,—­hard, firm sand, sloping so gradually into deep water, and with so little undertow and so few dangers, that children can play in the water without attendants.  The village itself is inoffensive, the country about is attractive; but the crowd—­the crowd that comes in summer—­comes with a rush almost to the hour in July, and takes flight with a greater rush almost to the minute in August,—­the crowd overwhelms, submerges, ignores the natural charms of the place, and for the time being nature hides its honest head before the onrush of sham and illusion.

Why do the people come in a week and go in a day?  What is there about Narragansett that keeps every one away until a certain time each year, attracts them for a few weeks, and then bids them off within twenty-four hours?  Just nothing at all.  All attractions the place has—­the ocean, the beach, the drives, the country—­remain the same; but no one dares come before the appointed time, no one dares stay after the flight begins; no one?  That is hardly true, for in every beautiful spot, by the ocean and in the mountains, there are a few appreciative souls who know enough to make their homes in nature’s caressing embrace while she works for their pure enjoyment her wondrous panorama of changing seasons.  There are people who linger at the sea-shore until from the steel-gray waters are heard the first mutterings of approaching winter; there are those who linger in the woods and mountains until the green of summer yields to the rich browns and golden russets of autumn, until the honk of the wild goose foretells the coming cold; these and their kind are nature’s truest and dearest friends; to them does she unfold a thousand hidden beauties; to them does she whisper her most precious secrets.