The Bathing Season 



sort of idea of lightness here. Humming and strum- 

 ming, and singing and smoking, splashing, and 

 sparkling; a buzz of voices and booming of sea! If 

 they could only be happy like this always ! 



Mamma has a tremendous fight over the bathing- 

 dresses, her own, of course; the bathing woman 

 cannot find them, and denies that she had them, 

 and by-and-by, after half an hour's exploration, finds 

 them all right, and claims commendation for having 

 put them away so safely. Then there is the battle 

 for a machine. The nurse has been keeping guard 

 on the steps, to seize it the instant the occupant 

 comes out. At last they get it, and the wonder is 

 how they pack themselves in it. Boom ! The bathers 

 have gone over again, I know. The rope stretches 

 as the men at the capstan go round, and heave 

 up the machines one by one before the devouring 

 tide. 



As it is not at all rude, but the proper thing to do, 

 I thought I would venture a little nearer (not too 

 obtrusively near) and see closer at hand how brave 

 womanhood faced the rollers. There was a young girl 

 lying at full length at the edge of the foam. She 

 reclined parallel to the beach, not with her feet 

 towards the sea, but so that it came to her side. She 

 was clad in some material of a gauzy and yet opaque 

 texture, permitting the full outline and the least 

 movement to be seen. The colour I do not exactly 

 know how to name; they could tell you at the 

 Magasin du Louvre, where men understand the hues 

 of garments as well as women. I presume it was one 

 of the many tints that are called at large " creamy." 

 It suited her perfectly. Her complexion was in the 

 faintest degree swarthy, and yet not in the least like 

 what a lady would associate with that word. The 



