and there
with a solitary farm-house or a clump of trees, gleaming softly through
the clear transparent atmosphere in a thousand varied hues of green, and
creamy white, and ruddy neutral, which gradually merged into a series of
delicate pearly-greys as the eye followed the bold outline to where
Saint Alban's Head sloped down into the azure sea. The noble bay,
gently ruffled by the morning breeze, shimmered and sparkled brilliantly
in the strong unclouded sunlight, its rippling wavelets chasing each
other shoreward in long lines until they plashed with a soothing murmur
into mimic breakers upon the broad, smooth, firm expanse of sand,
whereon happy children were disporting themselves, bare-footed, with
boat, and spade, and bucket, to their innocent hearts' content.

The proprietors of the bathing-vans were doing an excellent business,
their lumbering vehicles jolting noisily down into the water with
scarcely a moment's intermission. The band, drawn up in front of the
hideous statue to George the Fourth, which so greatly disfigures the
town, was discoursing, fairly well, a selection of good music; a long
line of chairs on the sands was fully occupied by loungers, mostly
ladies, reading, or amusing themselves by watching the antics of the
thronging children; the broad promenade was crowded with people on
pleasure bent. Light skiffs and neat well-appointed sailing boats were
darting hither and thither along the surface of the glancing waters; and
farther out, at a distance of about a mile from the shore, some half-a-
dozen or more yachts of various rigs and tonnage were lying at anchor,
with their club burgees gaily fluttering in the breeze, and most of them
with mainsail hoisted, or with other preparations actively going forward
toward getting under weigh for a day's cruise.

The delightful little watering-place, it has been said, was looking its
best; or at least this was the opinion expressed by a young man who,
accompanied by his father and sister, walked up the esplanade on that
particular morning, on his way to the railway-station _en route_ for
London by the ten o'clock South-Western express--his luggage having
preceded him on a hand-truck.

As the young man happens to be the hero of the present story, it may not
be amiss to describe him somewhat particularly.

Edward Damerell, then--for that was his name--was, at the date of our
introduction to him, within a month of reaching his nineteenth year; and
he had h