The boat turned into a pretty little harbor among the rocks, and the settlement was discovered:  a long, low, old-fashioned hotel with piazzas, and a few cottages, perched on the ledges, the door-yards of which were perfectly ablaze with patches of flowers, masses of red, yellow, purple-poppies, marigolds, nasturtiums, bachelor’s-buttons, lovely splashes of color against the gray lichen-covered rock.  At the landing is an interior miniature harbor, walled in, and safe for children to paddle about and sail on in tiny boats.  The islands offer scarcely any other opportunity for bathing, unless one dare take a plunge off the rocks.

Talk of the kaleidoscope!  At a turn of the wrist, as it were, the elements of society had taken a perfectly novel shape here.  Was it only a matter of grouping and setting, or were these people different from all others the tourists had seen?  There was a lively scene in the hotel corridor, the spacious office with its long counters and post-office, when the noon mail was opened and the letters called out.  So many pretty girls, with pet dogs of all degrees of ugliness (dear little objects of affection overflowing and otherwise running to waste—­one of the most pathetic sights in this sad world), jaunty suits with a nautical cut, for boating and rock-climbing, family groups, so much animation and excitement over the receipt of letters, so much well-bred chaffing and friendliness, such an air of refinement and “style,” but withal so homelike.  These people were “guests” of the proprietors, who nevertheless felt a sort of proprietorship themselves in the little island, and were very much like a company together at sea.  For living on this island is not unlike being on shipboard at sea, except that this rock does not heave about in a nauseous way.

Mr. King discovered by the register that the Bensons had been here (of all places in the world, he thought this would be the ideal one for a few days with her), and Miss Lamont had a letter from Irene, which she did not offer to read.

“They didn’t stay long,” she said, as Mr. King seemed to expect some information out of the letter, “and they have gone on to Bar Harbor.  I should like to stop here a week; wouldn’t you?”

“Ye-e-s,” trying to recall the mood he was in before he looked at the register; “but—­but” (thinking of the words “gone on to Bar Harbor”) “it is a place, after all, that you can see in a short time—­go all over it in half a day.”

“But you want to sit about on the rocks, and look at the sea, and dream.”

“I can’t dream on an island-not on a small island.  It’s too cooped up; you get a feeling of being a prisoner.”

“I suppose you wish ’that little isle had wings, and you and I within its shady—­’”

“There’s one thing I will not stand, Miss Lamont, and that’s Moore.”

“Come, let’s go to Star Island.”