Over the sea hung a white veil of mist, but the sun glowed through and melted into it, and harmonised it with the water green and translucent. The sea sucked about the shingle with little sudden sighs; the sails of the pleasure boat waved in the fairy-like depths, and all the little brown fishing-boats lay becalmed, heaving tremulously like tired butterflies upon the breast of a blue flower. The nursemaids lay together on the shingle, and their novels slipped down the stones to their feet. The children played with the tide and the sand. There were crowds of women—Jewesses with loud dresses: and the strange world of bath chairs! Ladies so old that they seem certain to fall to pieces when they are taken out; ladies with chestnut curls soft and fresh—why were they in bath chairs? General offi
