ied
with somebody. Was it with Oscar? or with myself? or with both? I fancy
with both.

To-day, we went out together for a walk on the cliffs. What a delight it
was to move through the fresh briny air, and see the lovely sights on
every side of me! Oscar enjoyed it too. All through the first part of our
walk, he was charming, and I was more in love with him than ever. On our
return, a little incident occurred which altered him for the worse, and
which made my spirits sink again.

It happened in this manner.

I proposed returning by the sands. Ramsgate is still crowded with
visitors; and the animated scene on the beach in the later part of the
day has attractions for me, after my blind life, which it does not (I
dare say) possess for people who have always enjoyed the use of their
eyes. Oscar, who has a nervous horror of crowds, and who shrinks from
contact with people not so refined as himself, was surprised at my
wishing to mix with what he called "the mob on the sands." However, he
said he would go, if I particularly wished it. I did particularly wish
it. So we went.

There were chairs on the beach. We hired two, and sat down to look about
us.

All sorts of diversions were going on. Monkeys, organs, girls on stilts,
a conjurer, and a troop of negro minstrels, were all at work to amuse the
visitors. I thought the varied color and bustling enjoyment of the crowd,
with the bright blue sea beyond, and the glorious sunshine overhead,
quite delightful--I declare I felt as if two eyes were not half enough to
see with! A nice old lady, sitting near, entered into conversation with
me; hospitably offering me biscuits and sherry out of her own bag. Oscar,
to my disappointment, looked quite disgusted with all of us. He thought
my nice old lady vulgar; and he called the company on the beach "a herd
of snobs." While he was still muttering under his breath about the
"mixture of low people," he suddenly cast a side-look at some person or
thing--I could not at the moment tell which--and, rising, placed himself
so as to intercept my view of the promenade on the sands immediately
before me. I happened to have noticed, at the same moment, a lady
approaching us in a dress of a peculiar color; and I pulled Oscar on one
side, to look at her as she passed in front of me. "Why do you get in my
way?" I asked. Before he could answer the question the lady passed, with
two lovely children, and with a tall man at her side. My eyes, looking