s other bathers were doing all round the
bay. When Mrs. Hilary came out of her tent, Neville was waiting for her,
poised like a slim girl, knee-deep in tumbling waves, shaking the water
from her eyes.

"Come, mother. I'll race you out."

Mrs. Hilary waded in, a figure not without grace and dignity. Looking
back they saw Rosalind coming down the beach, large-limbed and splendid,
like Juno. Mrs. Hilary shrugged her shoulders.

"Disgusting," she remarked to Neville.

So much more, she meant, of Rosalind than of Rosalind's costume. Mrs.
Hilary preferred it to be the other way about, for, though she did not
really like either of them, she disliked the costume less than she
disliked Rosalind.

"It's quite in the fashion," Neville assured her, and Mrs. Hilary,
remarking that she was sure of that, splashed her head and face and
pushed off, mainly to escape from Rosalind, who always sat in the foam,
not being, like the Hilary family, an active swimmer.

Already Pamela and Gilbert were far out, swimming steadily against each
other, and Nan was tumbling and turning like an eel close behind them.

Neville and Mrs. Hilary swam out a little way.

"I shall now float on my back," said Mrs. Hilary. "You swim on and catch
up with the rest."

"You'll be all right?" Neville asked, lingering.

"Why shouldn't I be all right? I bathe nearly every day, you know, even
if I am sixty-three." This was not accurate; she only bathed as a rule
when it was warm, and this seldom occurs on our island coasts.

Neville, saying, "Don't stop in long, will you," left her and swam out
into the blue with her swift, over-hand stroke. Neville was the best
swimmer in a swimming family. She clove the water like a torpedo
destroyer, swift and untiring between the hot summer sun and the cool
summer sea. She shouted to the others, caught them up, raced them and
won, and then they began to duck each other. When the Hilary brothers
and sisters were swimming or playing together, they were even as they had
been twenty years ago.

Mrs. Hilary watched them, swimming slowly round, a few feet out of her
depth. They seemed to have forgotten her and her birthday. The only one
who was within speaking distance was Rosalind, wallowing with her big
white limbs in tumbling waves on the shore; Rosalind, whom she disliked;
Rosalind, who was more than her costume, which was not saying much;
Rosalind, before whom she had to keep up an appearance of immense
enjoyment beca