“At Fishkill,” said that lady. “It’s only a few miles ahead.” And in an hour or so they stopped before a sleepy old inn, low and rambling, with a Rip-Van-Winklish look about it. There is a lazy luxuriance, a sort of slatternly comfort, and a Southern coloring about these old New York villages, bespeaking material ease and an absence of moral nervousness; perhaps nervous morality would better express it. “I never look at a place like this,” said Wemyss, “without thinking that the most vigorous-sounding word in the Dutchman’s language was Schnapps!” After luncheon the day was warm, and the ladies inclined to sleep. Only Derwent wished for a walk, and Arthur went with him, while the others smoked. They sauntered through the little town’s unkempt, painted streets; and Derwent sent a telegram. Arthur noticed, with some surprise, that it was addressed to Haviland. Then at three they returned, and found the party for the most part wrapped in dreams. They put to and were off, but the order was changed, as usual, and Pussie Duval rode with Derwent on the box. Caryl Wemyss would not drive, for he never did anything that he thought he did not well; so he and Mrs. Gower and Birmingham sat on the back seat, with Arthur, Van Kull, Mrs. Hay, and Kitty Farnum on in front. The drive to Poughkeepsie was straight and uneventful. The long hours were only diversified by Mrs. Wilton Hay’s uncertain efforts on the coaching horn. Poughkeepsie is a brick-built city, with horse-car lines, an opera-house, and a court of justice all its own. Here they had a suite of rooms, with long lace curtains, black-walnut furniture, and Brussels carpets, equipped “before the dawn of taste, in poor imitation of a poorer thing,” said Wemyss; “how different from an English inn!” The rest of the adornment consisted, in each room, of a steam-heater and a pitcher of ice-water! “I believe they even bathe in ice-water!” said he. “Dear me!” said Birmingham, simply. “I rang and could not get a tub at all.”