In her lament over the degeneracy of the age, the good woman rocked back and forth, but kept her eyes upon the boat, which was heading for the shore. Miss Hansford was always spoken of as a _character_ and was better known than any permanent resident in Oak City. Indeed, she was a part of the city, and had seen it grow from a few tents clustered around the camp grounds to its present proportions and modern usages, to which she did not take kindly. When a girl she had come from her home in Ridgefield with a party of young people as gay and thoughtless as herself to attend the annual camp-meeting, which was beginning to attract a good deal of attention. The site for the camp-meeting had been chosen by the Methodists, partly for its delightful situation, and partly for its entire seclusion from anything worldly which would disturb the mind and hinder the good work. The only house then upon the Heights was known as the Ralston House, which had been built for many years, and, with its huge chimney and square look-out on the roof, was a landmark for the surrounding country. Many strange stories were told of it and its first owner, old Captain Ralston, whose ship, the Vulture, had sailed to all parts of the world, and finally gone down in a wild storm off the Banks of Newfoundland. The house itself was said to have been a rendezvous for smugglers and a hiding place for their goods. But with the sinking of the Vulture and the death of the captain, who went down with it, the stories ceased, and when the first camp-meeting was held the great house was occupied by the elders and those who could afford to pay for the rooms. On the Oceanside a few straggling dwellings were springing up near the grounds and the shore, but for the most part the accommodations were of the crudest kind. People brought their own provisions and beds, and camped upon the ground and under trees and felt that they were worshiping God far more acceptably than if the blue sky above them had been the dome of some expensive church and the hard benches upon which they sat in its luxuriously cushioned pews.