th the sound of human voices, and running with the water from wet
bathing-suits. Fifteen minutes later they met again, still beaming, to
cross under the damp, icy shadow of the boardwalk, and come out, fairly
dancing with high spirits, upon the long, hot curve of the beach. The
delicious touch of warm sand under her stockinged feet, the sunlight
beating upon her glittering hair, Martie would run down the shore to
the first wheeling shallows of the Atlantic.

"Nothing I have ever done in my life is so wonderful as this!" she
shouted as the waves caught them, and carried them off their feet. John
swam well; Martie a little; neither could get enough of the tumbling
blue water.

Breathless, they presently joined Adele; Martie spreading her
glittering web of hair to dry, as she sat in the sand by the other
woman's chair; John stretched in the hot sand for a nap; Teddy
staggering to and fro with a dripping pail. They liked to keep a little
away from the crowd; a hundred feet away the footmarked sand was
littered with newspapers, cigarette-butts, gum-wrappers, and empty
paper-bags, the drowsing men and women were packed so close that
laughing girls and boys, going by in their bathing-suits, had to weave
a curving path up and down the beach.

Presently they had a hearty meal: soft-shell crabs fried brown, with
lemon and parsley, coffee ready-mixed with milk and sugar, sliced
tomatoes with raw onions, all served in cheap little bare rooms, at
scarred little bare tables, a hundred feet from the sea. Later came the
amusements: railways and flying-swings enjoyed simultaneously with hot
sausages and ice-cream cones.

Adele liked none of this so much as she liked to go up toward the big
hotels at about five o'clock, to find a table near the boardwalk, and
sit twirling her parasol, and watching the people stream by. The
costumes and the types were tirelessly entertaining. At six they
ordered sandwiches and beer, and Teddy had milk and toast. The
uniformed band, coming out into its pagoda, burst into a brassy uproar,
the sun sank, the tired crowd in its brilliant colours surged slowly to
and fro. Beyond all, the sea softly came and went, waves broke and
spread and formed again unendingly.

Martie felt that she would like to sit so forever, with her son's soft,
relaxed little body in her arms. To-night she did not analyze the new
emotion that John's glances, John's voice, John's quiet solicitude for
her comfort, had lent the day.