As for my wife and myself, our enjoyment of the life was beyond question. We had always been fond of the theatre and now we saw everything worth seeing. We had a delightful circle of friends whom we were meeting continually. Our home was handsome and spacious. Our appointments fitted it beautifully and every room in the house, from the billiard-room in the basement, up through the four stories was very attractive. Every pleasant morning I drove the T-cart or tandem through the park to the Fifty-eighth Street Elevated station, and in the afternoon, with the brougham, after calls or shopping, my wife would meet me. When there was sufficient snow to permit it we would have out the large sleigh, and with four-in-hand or three abreast derive keen pleasure from our drive. For clubs I had little use, though a member of several. For many years I went to the Down-Town Association for luncheon and occasionally after the theatre took my wife to the ladies' dining-room in the Colonial Club for a supper; as a rule, however, we went for these suppers to the Waldorf, where we usually met friends. With our life in New York commenced a closer intimacy with the Caines, though not of our seeking. They lived nearer to us than any of our friends and their informal calls became very frequent. In a way we liked them. They were chatty, sociable people, though a little too much inclined to gossip. They were not well mated. Both had tempers and the wife had some money, the husband, little or none; consequently there was friction and they lacked the good taste to confine their differences to the privacy of their own apartments. This was a great drawback to our enjoyment of their society. CHAPTER XXXIV A SUMMER ON THE SOUND The winter of 1893 and 1894, crowded with its social pleasures, was soon over, and with the approach of warm weather we sought a summer home. We had passed so many summers inland, we longed for the water--ocean or sound, preferably the latter. Many places on the Connecticut and Long Island shores were looked at without finding just what we wanted, and it was not until the middle of June that we decided on the W. H. Crossman place at Great Neck, L. I. The place had many attractions, not the least of which was its accessibility by boat. A sail of an hour twice a day was in itself a great rest for me, and combined with this was a commodious, well-furnished house; fine stable; ample grounds, handsomely laid out; good kitchen garden, planted; plenty of fruit; gardener, and Alderney cows on the place, and best of all a fine bathing beach at the foot of the lawn, with the open Sound before us. As I sat at dinner I could see the Sound steamers go by on their way east, numerous yachts passing constantly, the Sands Point Light, and across the Sound the New York shore. We drove to Great Neck from New York on the drag, crossing the Ferry to College Point.