Now Helen Johns was a beauty; no one unbiassed by the party spirit of a time-honoured feud would have denied that.  She was not, it is true, of the ordinary type of beauty, whose chief ornament is an effort at captivation.  She did not curl her hair; she did not lift her eyes and smile when she was talking to men; she did not trouble herself to put on her prettiest gown when the evening train came in, bringing the bachelors from the city.  She was tall—­five foot eight in her stockings; all her muscles were well developed; there was nothing sylph-like about her waist, but all her motions had a strong, gentle grace of their own that bespoke health and dignity.  She had a profession, too, which was much beneath most of the be-crimped and smile-wreathed maidens who basked in the favour of the bachelors.  She had been to New York and had learned to teach gymnastics, the very newest sort; ‘Delsart’ or ‘Emerson,’ or some such name, attached to the rhythmic motions she performed.  The Syndicate had no opportunity to criticise the gymnastic performance, for they had not the honour of her acquaintance; they criticised everything else, the smooth hair, the high brow, the well-proportioned waist, the profession; they decided that she was not beautiful.

There were, roughly speaking, two classes of girls in this summer settlement, each held in favour by the Syndicate men according as personal taste might dispose.  There were the girls who in a cheerful manner were ever to be found walking or boating in such hours and places as would assuredly bring them into contact with the happy bachelors, and there were those who would not ‘for the world’ have done such a thing, who sedulously shunned such paths, and had to be much sought after before they were found.  Now it chanced that Helen Johns was seen to row alone in her uncle’s boat right across the very front of the Syndicate boat-house, at the very hour when the assembled members were eating roast beef upon the verandah above and arriving at their decisions concerning her, and she did not look as if she cared in the least whether twenty-four pair of eyes were bent upon her or not.  To be sure, it was her nearest way home from the post-office across the bay, and the post came in at this evening hour.  No one could find any fault, not even any of the bachelors, but none the less did the affront sink deep into their hearts.  It added a new zest to the old feud.  ’We do not see that she is beautiful,’ they cried over their dinner.  ’We should not care for Helen of Troy if she looked like that.’

The Baby dissented; the Baby actually had the ‘cheek’ to say, right there aloud at the banquet, that he might not be a man of taste, but, for his part, he thought she looked ‘the jolliest girl’ he had ever seen.  In his heart he meant that he thought she looked like a goddess or an angel (for the Baby was a reverent youth), but he veiled his real feeling under this reticent phrase.

One and all they spoke to him, spoke loudly, spoke severely.  ‘Baby,’ they said, ’if you have any dealings with the niece of Farmer Johns we’ll kick you out of this.’