't know what you propose
to us. To go and roll about in an open boat in these waves--we should
be ill in five minutes. But I suppose you don't know what sea-sickness
is?"

"No," said Sheila, "but I will hear my husband speak of it often. And
it is only in crossing the Channel that people will get sick."

"Why, this is the Channel."

Sheila stared. Then she endeavored to recall her geography. Of course
this must be a part of the Channel, but if the people in the South
became ill in this weather, they must be rather feeble creatures.
Her speculations on this point were cut short by the entrance of her
husband, who came to announce that he had not only secured a carriage
for a month, but that it would be round at the hotel door in half an
hour; whereupon the two American ladies said they would be ready, and
left the room.

"Now go off and get dressed, Sheila," said Lavender.

She stood for a moment irresolute.

"If you wouldn't mind," she said after a moment's hesitation--"if you
would allow me to go by myself--if you would go to the driving, and
let me go down to the shore!"

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "You will have people fancying you are only
a school-girl. How can you go down to the beach by yourself among all
those loafing vagabonds, who would pick your pocket or throw stones at
you? You must behave like an ordinary Christian: now do, like a good
girl, get dressed and submit to the restraints of civilized life. It
won't hurt you much."

So she left, to lay aside with some regret her rough blue dress, and
he went down stairs to see about ordering dinner.

Had she come down to the sea, then, only to live the life that had
nearly broken her heart in London? It seemed so. They drove up
and down the Parade for about an hour and a half, and the roar of
carriages drowned the rush of the waves. Then they dined in the quiet
of this still summer evening, and she could only see the sea as a
distant and silent picture through the windows, while the talk of
her companions was either about the people whom they had seen while
driving, or about matters of which she knew nothing. Then the blinds
were drawn and candles lit, and still their conversation murmured
around her unheeding ears. After dinner her husband went down to the
smoking-room of the hotel to have a cigar, and she was left with Mrs.
Kavanagh and her daughter. She went to the window and looked through
a chink in the Venetian blinds. There was a beautiful clear