The regular visiter at these times is a black-eyed, cherry-cheeked cousin from Baltimore, a little given to flirting and dangerously fascinating, as graceful as a young fawn, and as frolicksome as a kitten. She always appears to have come down purposely for a romp, having left city affectations at home, and brought her graces with her. Then she wont go home until she has half a dozen of her cousins—from the third to the sixth remove—desperately in love with her, to keep them in mind of Cape May.
Then “Tom”—“Our Tom”—he is always there; Tom wouldn’t miss Cape May, in the season, for a £100—and the sly dog knows how to show off the attractions of his beautiful cousins. He is sure to decoy them into the Archery every bright morning, and has so many neat and appropriate remarks in regard to the health and gracefulness of the exercise—and the bows are so inviting, and the arrows so neat—the gold and crimson target so tempting that you do not wonder to see a cloud of arrows filling the air, and a crowd of lounging _beaux_, filled with shafts more dangerous. Then “Tom”—sad Tom—knows that his fair cousins are as fearless as beautiful, and fire off pistols with quite a soldierly air—that is, when Tom loads them; and the sly scamp, speaks in so low a tone—so softly and so kindly—when he hands the pistol with the hair-trigger, that you are amazed to find that there was powder in it when it goes off—and at the first crack “Tom” has the whole family there; then he is such a lover of enjoyment himself—is good, honest, manly Tom Barrett—that it delights him to see them. Then he has his Bowling Saloons in tiptop order; his Billiard-room, too; his dogs and guns for crack shots at woodcock, and ambitious young sportsmen after curlew; and then he has—In short, it wouldn’t _be_ Cape May, if Tom wasn’t there—and there’s an end of it. Well, well, Tom! we shall not try your pistols nor your archery this summer, but shall take a crack at Cape May, in a story, which we have in type. So let the surf come tumbling in with its musical roar—its wild waves wash out no memories. Our loves and our hates keep time in the heart which beats on proudly, yet bides its time hopefully. In the roar of the wilder ocean, where men go down battling unregretted, how many who now spread their bright sails to the favoring breeze, shall, ere the voyage is ended, find sail and cordage gone, their vessels wrecked, and the happy hearts of merry companions, one after the other, swept by the remorseless wave forever under—who shall tell, Tom! But so the side toward heaven has been ripened by the sunlight of kindness to man, what matters the breakers, Tom, to you or to me?