es. What could I do? It was as impossible to walk
along the beach as to fight back against the current. Presence of
mind, Kate, is the salient point of the heroic character; the door
of a machine was open, and I popped in. My dear, there were all his
clothes, his hair-brush, his button-hook, his wig, and, would you
believe it? an instrument for curling his whiskers! I put everything
on except the wig, crowned myself with his broad-brimmed white hat,
felt in his pockets, which were full of gold and silver, and, to my
credit be it said, only selected one shilling, with which I paid the
bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat
old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper
costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the
luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the
temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he was disporting in 'the
briny.'

"Other adventures I have had none; and the contrast is, as you may
believe, somewhat striking after the last two or three weeks of the
London season--always, to my mind, the pleasantest part of the
year. I was sorry you left town when you did; we had such a number
of charming little dinners and expeditions in our own set. Dear
Frank Lovell was the life and soul of us all. I never knew him in
such spirits--quite like a boy out of school; and there were few
days that we did not meet either at Greenwich or Richmond, or
Windsor or Vauxhall; and of course wherever _he_ went there was Lady
Scapegrace. I must say that, although nobody can accuse me of being
a prude, the way she goes on with Frank is rather too brazen-faced
even for _her_--taking him everywhere in her carriage, setting him
down at his club after the opera, walking with him in Kensington
Gardens, his cab always at the door, and her ladyship 'not at home'
even to me. To be sure, he is almost as bad, if it is true, as
everybody says it is, that he is to marry Miss Molasses.

"Poor Frank! he must get hold of somebody with money, or he will
soon be in the Bench. He is rather a friend of yours, my dear, so I
ought not to abuse him; but he is _very wild_, and though extremely
agreeable, I am afraid utterly unprincipled. I do not believe,
however, that he cares one snap of the fingers for Lady Scapegrace,
or Miss Molasses either, for the matter of that. I meant to have
written you