The Happy Family

The less said of the "transients" the better. The few who stumbled in did not stay unless by chance they were favourably known to one of the "permanents." Of course there was no rudeness ever--merely the polite surprise of the regular occupants when they find a stranger in the pew on Sunday morning. Sometimes the transient stayed out his or her vacation, but usually he confided to the chambermaid, and sometimes Mr. Cone, that the guests were "doodledums" and "fossils" and found another hotel where the patrons, if less solid financially, were more interesting and sociable.

Wallace Macpherson belonged in the group of older patrons, as his aunt, Miss Mary Macpherson, had been coming since 1897, and he himself from the time he wore curls and ruffled collars, or after his aunt had taken him upon the death of his parents.

"Wallie," as he was called by everybody, as the one eligible man under sixty, was, in his way, as much of an asset to the hotel as the notoriously wealthy Mr. Penrose. Of an amiable and obliging disposition, he could always be relied upon to escort married women with mutinous husbands, and ladies who had none, mutinous or otherwise. He was twenty-four, and, in appearance, a credit to any woman he was seen with, to say nothing of the two hundred thousand it was known he would inherit from Aunt Mary, who now supported him.

Wallie's appearance upon the veranda was invariably in the nature of a triumphal entry. He was received with lively acclaim and cordiality as he flitted impartially from group to group, and that person was difficult indeed with whom he could not find something in common, for his range of subjects extended from the "rose pattern" in Irish crochet to Arctic currents.