Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
Author of "A Fortunate Term"
"The Princess of the School" &c.
Illustrated by Treyer Evans
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Illustrations
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A Last Bathe
The warm, mellow September sunshine was streaming over the irregularroofs and twisted chimneys of the little town of Chagmouth, and wasglinting on the water in the harbour, and sending gleaming, straggling,silver lines over the deep reflections of the shipping moored by the sideof the jetty. The rising tide, lapping slowly and gently in from theocean, was floating the boats beached on the shingle, and was graduallydriving back the crowd of barefooted children who had ventured out insearch of mussels, and was sending them, shrieking with mirth, scamperingup the seaweed-covered steps that led to the fish market. On the crag-topabove the town the corn had been cut, and harvesters were busy laying thesheaves together in stooks. The yellow fields shone in the afternoonlight as if the hill were crowned with gold.
Walking along the narrow cobbled path that led past the harbour and up onto the cliff, Mavis and Merle looked at the scene around with that senseof rejoicing proprietorship with which we are wont to revisit the petplace of our adoption. It was two whole months since they had been inChagmouth, and as they both considered the little town to be the absolutehub of the universe it was really a great event to find themselves oncemore in its familiar streets. They had spent the summer holidays withtheir father and mother in the north, and had come back to Durracombejust in time for the reopening of school. On this first Saturday aftertheir return to Devonshire they had motored with Uncle David to hisbranch surgery at Chagmouth, and were looking forward to several hours ofamusement while he visited his patients at the sanatorium.
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