Dr. Cricket, who seems to feel personally responsible for these young men, evidently thought my behavior ungracious and inhospitable. To make amends, he followed Philip to the door, and called out after him and Mr. Flint:-- "Oh, by the way, we're going up to Flying Point for a clam-bake some evening this week. Would you care to go too?" "By all means, if you will be good enough to take us into the party," Philip answered heartily. If his friend said anything, it was lost in the fog which was rolling in thick from the ocean. I never take prejudices; but I often have an instinct about people before I know them, and this instinct tells me that I am not going to like this Mr. Flint. He is so self-sufficient,--not conceited, but completely satisfied with his own judgments. When he asks any one's opinion, he does it as if it were a mere matter of curiosity how such a person might feel, not with any idea of being influenced. I can stand this from a person with strong convictions; but this young man seems to have none. He actually smiled when I quoted Dr. Channing. "Perhaps you never heard of him," I said, a little irritated by that supercilious smile of his. "Oh, yes," he answered; "but he was at such pains to set himself up in opposition to my ancestors, that family pride compels me to resent it, though my personal prejudices may be in his favor." I cannot abide such trifling. It seems to make it ridiculous in any one to be in earnest. P. S.--Dr. Cricket asked me to-day if I would marry him. I told him he was an old fool; but I could not make him believe it. CHAPTER VII ON THE BEACH "The curving land, with its cool white sand, Lies like a sickle beside the sea." The next morning dawned cloudless. Nature, radiant in her bountiful splendor, seemed to give herself to man, who, in response, thrilled with something of the primal impulse which stirred his pulses in the golden days before he had separated himself from the beneficent currents of the Earth Mother's vitality to shut himself up within brick walls with artificial heat, artificial light, and artificial stimulants.