spent several weeks of the
winter abroad in places like Nice and Cannes, and the poorer contingent
took their holiday from Skeaton in the summer in Glebeshire or the Lake
District. The Constantines and the Maxses were very fine indeed because
they went both to Cannes in the winter and Scotland in the summer. It
was wonderful, considering how often Mrs. Constantine was away from
Skeaton, how solemn and awe-inspiring an impression she made and
retained in the Skeaton world. Maggie discovered that unless you had a
large house with independent grounds outside the town it was impossible
to remain in Skeaton during the summer months. Oh! the trippers! ...Oh!
the trippers! Yes, they were terrible-swallowed up the sands,
eggshells, niggers, pierrots, bathing-machines, vulgarity, moonlight
embracing, noise, sand, and dust. If you were any one at all you did
not stay in Skeaton during the summer months-unless, as I have said,
you were so grand that you could disregard it altogether.

It happened that these weeks were wet and windy and Maggie was blown
about from one end of the town to the other. There could be no denying
that it was grim and ugly under these conditions. It might be that when
the spring came there would be flowers in the gardens and the trees
would break out into fresh green and the sands would gleam with
mother-of-pearl and the sea would glitter with sunshine. All that
perhaps would come. Meanwhile there was not a house that was not
hideous, the wind tore screaming down the long beaches carrying with it
a flurry of tempestuous rain, whilst the sea itself moved in sluggish
oily coils, dirt-grey to the grey horizon. Worst of all perhaps were
the deserted buildings at other times dedicated to gaiety, ghosts of
places they were with torn paper flapping against their sides and the
wind tearing at their tin-plated roofs. Then there was the desolate
little station, having, it seemed, no connection with any kind of
traffic-and behind all this the woods howled and creaked and whistled,
derisive, provocative, the only creatures alive in all that world.

Between the Fashion and the Place the Church stood as a bridge.

Centuries ago, when Skeaton had been the merest hamlet clustered behind
the beach, the Church had been there-not the present building, looking,
poor thing, as though it were in a perpetual state of scarlet fever,
but a shabby humble little chapel close to the sea sheltered by the
sandy hill.

The present