THE BATHING SEASON. 163 



oblivious of the odd angle his plump person makes, 

 quite unconscious of the threatened crack crash ! It 

 does not happen. A sort of magnetism sticks it 

 together ; it is in the air ; it makes things go right 

 that ought to go wrong. Awfully naughty place ; no 

 sort of idea of rightness 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 to- 

 wards 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 move- 

 ment to be seen. The colour I do not exactly know 



