But there are resorts suited to all tastes, and to the economical as well as to the extravagant. Perhaps the strongest impression one has in visiting the various watering-places in the summer-time, is that the multitudes of every-day folk are abroad in search of enjoyment. On the New Bedford boat for Martha's Vineyard our little party of tourists sailed quite away from Newport life--Stanhope with mingled depression and relief, the artist with some shrinking from contact with anything common, while Marion stood upon the bow beside her uncle, inhaling the salt breeze, regarding the lovely fleeting shores, her cheeks glowing and her eyes sparkling with enjoyment. The passengers and scene, Stanhope was thinking, were typically New England, until the boat made a landing at Naushon Island, when he was reminded somehow of Scotland, as much perhaps by the wild furzy appearance of the island as by the “gentle-folks” who went ashore.
The boat lingered for the further disembarkation of a number of horses and carriages, with a piano and a cow. There was a farmer's lodge at the landing, and over the rocks and amid the trees the picturesque roof of the villa of the sole proprietor of the island appeared, and gave a feudal aspect to the domain. The sweet grass affords good picking for sheep, and besides the sheep the owner raises deer, which are destined to be chased and shot in the autumn.
The artist noted that there were several distinct types of women on board, besides the common, straight-waisted, flat-chested variety. One girl who was alone, with a city air, a neat, firm figure, in a traveling suit of elegant simplicity, was fond of taking attitudes about the rails, and watching the effect produced on the spectators. There was a blue-eyed, sharp-faced, rather loose-jointed young girl, who had the manner of being familiar with the boat, and talked readily and freely with anybody, keeping an eye occasionally on her sister of eight years, a child with a serious little face in a poke-bonnet, who used the language of a young lady of sixteen, and seemed also abundantly able to take care of herself. What this mite of a child wants of all things, she confesses, is a pug-faced dog. Presently she sees one come on board in the arms of a young lady at Wood's Holl. “No,” she says, “I won't ask her for it; the lady wouldn't give it to me, and I wouldn't waste my breath;” but she draws near to the dog, and regards it with rapt attention. The owner of the dog is a very pretty black-eyed girl with banged hair, who prattles about herself and her dog with perfect freedom. She is staying at Cottage City, lives at Worcester, has been up to Boston to meet and bring down her dog, without which she couldn't live another minute. “Perhaps,” she says, “you know Dr. Ridgerton, in Worcester; he's my brother. Don't you know him? He's a chiropodist.”