by a toll-gate road over the marshes, bound for
Winchelsea, and, passing through the ivy-clad tower which spans the
roadway, stopped abruptly, like all hero or heroine worshippers,
before the dainty home of Ellen Terry. The creeper-clung little brick
cottage is a reminiscence of old-world peace and quiet which must be
quite refreshing after an active life on the stage.

Hastings saw us for the night. Hastings and St. Leonards, twin
sea-front towns, are what, for a better description, might be called
snug and smug. They are simply the most depressing, unlovely resorts
of sea-front and villas that one will see in a round of all the
English resorts.

As a pompous, bustling, self-sufficient little city, Hastings, with
its fisher men and women, its fish-market and the ruined
castle-crowned height, has some quaintness and character; but as a
resort where the chief amusements are scrappy, tuneless
hurdy-gurdies, blatant brass bands, living picture shows, or
third-rate repetitious of a last year's London theatrical successes,
it is about the rankest boring proposition which ever drew the unwary
visitor.

We had our "B. B. B." that night at the Queen's Hotel, a vast
barracks of a place near the end of the Parade. The best thing about
it was the view from the windows of our sleeping-rooms, and the fact
that we could stable our automobile under the same roof.

We made a little run inland from Hastings the next morning to view
old Battle Abbey. The battlement-crowned gateway is still one of the
architectural marvels of England. It took us a dozen miles out of our
way, but always among the rolling downs which dip down to the sea,
chalk-faced and grass-grown in a manner characteristic only of the
south coast of England.

We came to Eastbourne through Pevensey, famed for its old ruined
castle and much history. A low-lying marsh-grown fishing-port of
olden times, Pevensey was the landing-place of the Conqueror when he
came to lay the foundation-stones of England's greatness. It is a
shrine that Britons should bow down before, and reverently.

Eastbourne is a vast improvement, as a resort, over any south coast
town we had yet seen. It is not gay, it is rather sedate, and
certainly eminently respectable and dignified. Giant wheels,
hurdy-gurdies, and quack photographers are banished from its beach
and esplanade, and one may stroll undisturbed by anything but
perambulators and bath-chairs. Its sea-front walk of a couple of
miles