nt a pleasant month in this little place. It is the mouth of
a gorge in the midst of a cliff-bound coast. The bay, but a quarter of a
mile in sweep, is shut in at each end by a projecting wall of cliff cut
by a natural arch. Half the shingle beach is given up to fisherfolk and
their boats and tarred Noah's arks where they keep their nets. The
other half suddenly rises into a digue or terrace on which is built a
primitive casino, and below the terrace are the bathing-cabins. We are
staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There
are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots,
an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and
scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's passage.
Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I
inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, bare little chamber
with a balconied window that looks over the Noah's Arks and the
fishing-smacks and fisherfolk, away out to sea. This morning as I lay in
bed I saw our Channel fleet lie along the arc of the horizon.

Antoinette dwells in continuous rapture at being in France again.
Carlotta assures me that the smile does not leave her great red face
even as she sleeps of nights. It is a little jest between us. She
peeped in once to see. The good soul has filled herself up with French
conversation as a starving hen gorges herself with corn. She has scraped
acquaintance with every washerwoman, fish-wife, _marchande_, bathing
woman and domestic servant on the beach. She is on intimate terms with
the whole male native population. When the three of us happen to walk
together it is a triumphal progress of bows and grins and nods. At
first I thought it was I for whom this homage was intended. I was soon
undeceived. It was Antoinette. She loves to parade Carlotta before
her friends. I came upon her once entertaining an admiring audience in
Carlotta's presence with a detailed description of that young woman's
physical perfections--a description which was marked by a singular
lack of reticence. The time of her glory is the bathing hour, when she
accompanies Carlotta from her cabin to the water's edge, divests her of
_peignoir_ and _espadrilles_, but before revealing her to fashionable
Etretat, casts a preliminary glance around, as who should say: "Prepare
all men and women for the dazzling goddess I am about to unveil."
Carlotta is undoubtedly bewitching in her ba