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Then there had been the pleasurable exciteha occupation and interest of arranging his new library, which, in spite of family doubts and disapprovals, had been carried out as he had dreamed, with a dark embossed paper, Eastlake book-cases and "sincere" arain, and at the Knickerbocker the fashionable young men of his own set; and ith the hours dedicated to the law and those given to dining out or entertaining friends at ho at the Opera or the play, the life he was living had still seemed a fairly real and inevitable sort of business

But Newport represented the escape fro Archer had tried to persuade May to spend the summer on a remote island off the coast of Maine (called, appropriately enough, Mount Desert), where a few hardy Bostonians and Philadelphians were caes, and whence ca scenery and a wild, almost trapper-like existence amid woods and waters

But the Wellands alent to Newport, where they owned one of the square boxes on the cliffs, and their son-in-law could adduce no good reason why he and May should not join them there As Mrs Welland rather tartly pointed out, it was hardly worth while for May to have worn herself out trying on summer clothes in Paris if she was not to be allowed to wear theument was of a kind to which Archer had as yet found no answer

May herself could not understand his obscure reluctance to fall in with so reasonable and pleasant a way of spending the summer She reminded him that he had always liked Newport in his bachelor days, and as this was indisputable he could only profess that he was sure he was going to like it better than ever now that they were to be there together But as he stood on the Beaufort verandah and looked out on the brightly peopled lawn it ca to like it at all

It was not May's fault, poor dear If, now and then, during their travels, they had fallen slightly out of step, harmony had been restored by their return to the conditions she was used to He had always foreseen that she would not disappoint hi irl at the moment when a series of rather aiust; and she had represented peace, stability, co sense of an unescapable duty