Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/37

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II

TEN summers after this, the old Colonel and Miss Jemima and Miss Letty scraped up money enough to spend a summer in a cheap boarding-house at Newport. Many surprises awaited the Colonel upon his first visit to Newport since "before the war, sir." In the first place, the money they paid for their plain rooms seemed a very imposing sum to them, and they were extremely surprised to find how small it was regarded at Newport.

"Newport, my dear Jemima and Letty, is a more expensive place than the White Sulphur in its palmiest days, when it had a monopoly of the chivalry of the South," announced the Colonel, oracularly.

Letty had innocently expected a great triumph, especially with her wardrobe. She had no less than five white Swiss muslin

frocks, all tucked and beruffled within an inch

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