not be
believed, I fear, but I am relating simple truth: in her agitation
this incredible female spills the cream in a copious shower-bath over
me and my chequered neighbor, and excitedly falls to mopping it off us
with her napkin, like a pantomime clown. Fortunately, we are in our
travelling suits, and come out of this baptism unharmed. The incident
nearly suffocates the company, for there is not a soul among them who
would not sooner suffer the pangs of dissolution than laugh outright.
As for me, I am nearly expiring with the merriment that consumes me
and my efforts to prevent indecorous explosion. The young woman, after
having wiped me dry, once more presents the cream-jug, this time with
both hands, but I can only murmur faintly in my trouble, "Thanks,
no--no _more_ cream." This appears to be quite too much for the young
person, who throws up her arms in despair and rushes after the butler.
What tragic encounter there may have been in the servants' hall I know
not. Another servant comes and carries the dinner through.

It is entertainment enough for the first morning of your stay at Tenby
just to sit at the windows and observe what is there before you--the
street with its passers, the beach with its strange rock-formations,
the ocean thickly dotted with fishing-craft. The tide is out, and the
huge black block of compact limestone called God's Rock, with its
almost perpendicular strata, lies all uncovered in the morning sun--a
vast curiosity-shop where children clamber about and search for
strange creatures of the sea. In the pools left here and there by
the receding tide are found not only crabs and periwinkles in great
number, but polyps, sea-anemones, star-fishes, medusae and the like in
almost endless variety. Naturalists--who are but children older grown,
with all a child's capacity for being amused by Nature--get rages of
enthusiasm on them as they search the crevices of this and other like
rocks at Tenby. A floor of hard yellow sand stretches away into the
distance, visible for miles, owing to the circular sweep of the beach
and the height from which we are looking out, and it is dotted with
strollers appearing like black mice moving slowly about. The
long stretch of the cliff, from its crescent shape, is clearly
seen--sometimes a sheer, bare stone precipice, sometimes a steep slope
covered with woods and hanging gardens and zigzag, descending walled
paths.

Among those who make up the human panorama of the