People who submit to this, consider themselves elegant. But what if in their own houses and dining-rooms there should be this "alarum, enter an army," as the old play-books say, whenever they entertained their friends at dinner. I was lonely at first. Nothing is so solitary as a gay and crowded Watering-Place, where you have few friends. The excessive hilarity of others emphasizes your own quiet and solitude. And especially at Saratoga, where there is no resource but the company. You must bowl, or promenade the piazza, or flirt, with the women. You must drink, smoke, chat, and game a little with the men. But if you know neither women nor men, and have no prospect of knowing them, then take the next train to Lake George. It is very different elsewhere. At Newport, for instance, if you are only No. 310 at your hotel and nothing more; if you know no one, and have to drink your wine, and smoke, and listen to the music alone, you have only to leap into your saddle, gallop to the beach, and as you pace along the margin of the sea, that will laugh with you at the frivolities you have left behind--will sometimes howl harsh scorn upon the butterflies, who are not worth it, and who do not deserve it--and the Atlantic will be to you lover, counselor, and sweet society. Toward the end of my first Saratoga week, I met an old college friend. It was my old chum, Herbert, from the South. Herbert, who, over many a midnight glass and wasting weed, had leaned out of my window in the moonlight, and recited those burning lines of Byron which all students do recite to that degree, that I have often wondered what students did, in romantic moonlights, before Byron was born. In those midnight recitals Herbert used often to stop, and say to me: "I wonder if you would like my sister?" Her name was not mentioned, but Herbert was so handsome in the southern style; he was so picturesque, and manly, and graceful--a kind of Sidney and Bayard--that I was sure his sister was not less than Amy Robsart, or Lucy of Lammermoor, or perhaps Zuleika. Toward the close of our course, we were one day sauntering beyond the little college-town, and dreaming dreams of that Future which, to every ambitious young man, seems a stately palace waiting to be royally possessed by him, when Herbert, who really loved me, said: "I wish you knew Lulu." "I wish I did know Lulu." And that was all we ever said about it. When we met at Saratoga it was a pleasant surprise to both, and doubly so to me, for I was sadly bored by my want of acquaintances. We fell into an earnest conversation, in the midst of which Herbert suddenly said: "Ah! there, I must run and join Lulu!" and left me.