ventional raiment. Once on the beach, she had a
trick of standing for a moment, looking out at the distant water with an
unconsciousness which was not feigned, then rapidly measuring the
incoming wave, she chose the exact moment of its rising to curl over and
break, plunged through it and, after an interval when the onlookers
waited breathlessly, she reappeared on the farther side and swam
tranquilly away up the shore. Hope might cling to the lifeline and be
boiled to her heart's content, and Theodora was welcome to paddle about
in the thick of the crowd, with Hubert and Billy beside her. To Phebe,
there was something fairly intoxicating in the knowledge of her strength,
in feeling the free, firm play of her muscles and in conquering the power
of the sea.

The wind had been blowing strongly, all the morning, and the waves were
rolling in heavily. Their green tops were crested with white foam which
rose high and higher, curved over as softly as a rose petal, balanced for
a brief second, then fell with a crash and went flowing up the bank of
the beach, circling and twisting in countless eddies that now and then
crept to the very awnings and caused a stampede among their inhabitants.
A dozen portly matrons sat in the sand, rocking to and fro as the wave
came up about them and receded; and children innumerable pranced around
them, playing tag with the tricky surf that often caught them unawares.

"Grandma," Mac said, trudging up to the McAlister awning with a pail of
sand under his arm; "isn't vat sky just lovely? I'd like to fly up vere,
and maybe God would let me work ve sun."

"Do you think you could work it, Mac?"

"Yes, it goes just like ve clock. He winds it up wiv a key, and ven it
goes all right. Grandma!"

"Well?"

Mac dropped his sand into her lap, and then plumped himself down
by her side.

"Did you see vat funny man in ve pinky suit? Well, he's Mrs.
Benson's boy."

"Hush, dear!" Mrs. McAlister said hastily, for Mrs. Benson's awning was
next her own.

"What for should I hush? He is funny; just you look at him and see."

"Mac is earning his right to a place in Dragons' Row," Hubert observed
from the spot, ten feet away, where he was taking a sunbath between
plunges. "Why don't you come in, mother?"

"I dare not face the critics," she answered laughingly, while she
emptied Mac's sand from her lap. "I shouldn't come out of it as well as
Babe does."

Hubert raised himself on his elbow and looked after