"All the old ladies are looking out of their windows, just as they were the day I was coming to Tideshead," she said; and Becky replied that their faces were always at just the same pane of glass. The fences were very high and had their tops cut in points, and over them here and there drooped the heavy bough of a fruit-tree or a long tendril of grapevine, as if there were delightful gardens inside. The sidewalks were very narrow underneath these fences, so that Betty often walked in the street to be alongside her companion. There were pretty old knockers on the front doors, and sometimes a parrot hung out under the porch, and shouted saucily at the passers-by. Riverport was a delightful old town. Betty was sure that if she did not love Tideshead best she should like to belong in Riverport, and have a garden with a river gate, and a great square house of three stories and a lookout on top. The stores were put on board, and Seth Pond came back from researches which had been rewarded by a half-bushel basket full of clams. Then they swung out into the stream again, and ever so many little boys with four grown men on the wharf gave them a cheer. It was great fun stopping for Aunt Barbara, who was in the garden watching for them, and was escorted by a charming white-haired old gentleman who teased her a little upon her youthful escapade, and a younger lady who walked sedately under an antique Chinese parasol. Betty sprang ashore to greet this latter personage, who had lately paid a visit to Miss Barbara at Tideshead. She was fond of Miss Marcia Drummond. "It seems like old times to have you going home by boat," said Miss Marcia, kissing Aunt Barbara good-by. "It is much pleasanter than a car journey. Betty, my dear, you know that your aunt is a very rash and heedless person; I hope you will hold her in check. I have been trying to persuade her that she will be much safer to-night in one of our old four-posters;" and so they said good-by merrily and were off again, while the young people in the boat looked back as long as they could see the old garden with its hollyhocks and lilies, and the two figures of the courtly old gentleman and the lady with the parasol going up the broad walk. "What a good thing it was in Tom Leicester to send his daughter to Tideshead this summer!" said the old gentleman. "I think that Barbara is renewing her youth. Tom is a man of distinction, and yet keeps to his queer wild ways. You are sure that Barbara quite understands about our wishing them to dine here? I think this camping business is positively foolish conduct in a person of her age." But Miss Marcia Drummond looked wistfully over her shoulder at the cat-boat's lessening sail, and wished that she too were going to spend a night under the pines. A little way up the river they passed the packet boat, a little belated and heavily laden, but moving steadily.