ight is a practice as unhygienic as, in the mixed company of a
watering-place, it is socially objectionable.

"Tennis is an absurdity worthy of the vacuous minds of those who engage
in it.. To suggest that I shall sit in a cramped position in a draughty
gallery for several hours at a stretch in order to watch empty-headed
young men playing a perverted form of battledoor and shuttlecock across
a net, is to imply that they and I are upon the same intellectual level;
and this, I trust, is not the case.

"As you certainly should remember, Dorothy, all persons of a bilious
habit suffer severely from seasickness; a fact that, of course, disposes
effectually of your yachting plans. For you are not desirous, I am
sure, of purchasing your own selfish enjoyment--if you possibly can have
enjoyment on board a yacht--at the cost of my intense personal misery.

"But in regard to the lunches, my dear"--Mr. Port's tone softened
perceptibly--"there certainly is something to be said. The food here
at the hotel, I admit, is atrocious, and at the Casino it is possible
occasionally to procure something eatable. Yes, I shall have much
pleasure in giving a lunch this very morning to my angel" (Mr. Port,
warming in advance under the genial influence of the croquette and salad
that he intended to order, became playful), "for what you said in regard
to the breakfast, Dorothy, was quite true--it was abominable. If you
will excuse me, I will just step down to the Casino now and give my
order; then things will be all ready for us when we get back from the
bath."

And such was Miss Lee's generalship that she rested content with her
success in one direction, and deferred until a more convenient season
her further demands. She was a reasonable young woman, and was quite
satisfied with accomplishing one thing at a time.

V.

Two or three days later Dorothy advanced her second parallel. In the
interval they had bathed every morning and had driven to the Point every
afternoon, and they had held converse upon the veranda of the hotel
every evening until ten o'clock with certain eminently respectable
people from Philadelphia, by whom Dorothy was bored, as she did not
hesitate to confess, almost to desperation. Further, Mr. Port had given
a lunch-party to which these same Philadelphians were invited; and his
niece had informed him, when the festivity was at an end, that if he did
anything like that again she certainly would either run away or dr