To be sure, the fashions are distressing enough, but Metelill shows that they can be treated gracefully and becomingly, and even Avice makes her serge and hat look fresh and ladylike.  Spite of contrast, Avice and Jane seem to be much devoted to each other.  Pica and Charley are another pair, and Isa and Metelill—­though Metelill is the universal favourite, and there is always competition for her.  In early morning I see the brown heads and blue bathing-dresses, a-mermaiding, as they call it, in the cove below, and they come in all glowing, with the floating tresses that make Metelill look so charming, and full of merry adventures at breakfast.  We all meet in the great room at the hotel for a substantial meal at half-past one, and again (most of us at least) at eight; but it is a moot point which of these meals we call dinner.  Very merry both of them are; Martyn and Horace Druce are like boys together, and the girls scream with laughter, rather too much so sometimes.  Charley is very noisy, and so is Meg Druce, when not overpowered by shyness.  She will not exchange a sentence with any of the elders, but in the general laugh she chuckles and shrieks like a young Cochin-Chinese chicken learning to crow; and I hear her squealing like a maniac while she is shrimping with the younger ones and Charley.  I must except those two young ladies from the unconscious competition, for one has no manners at all, and the other affects those of a man; but as to the rest, they are all as nice as possible, and I can only say, “How happy could I be with either.”  Isa, poor girl, seems to need our care most, and would be the most obliging and attentive.  Metelill would be the prettiest and sweetest ornament of our drawing-room, and would amuse you the most; Pica, with her scholarly tastes, would be the best and most appreciative fellow-traveller; and Jane, if she could or would go, would perhaps benefit the most by being freed from a heavy strain, and having her views enlarged.

10.—­A worthy girl is Jane Druce, but I fear the Vicarage is no school of manners.  Her mother is sitting with us, and has been discoursing to grandmamma on her Jane’s wonderful helpfulness and activity in house and parish, and how everything hinged on her last winter when they had whooping-cough everywhere in and out of doors; indeed she doubts whether the girl has ever quite thrown off the effects of all her exertions then.  Suddenly comes a trampling, a bounce and a rush, and in dashes Miss Jane, fiercely demanding whether the children had leave to go to the cove.  Poor Margaret meekly responds that she had consented.  “And didn’t you know,” exclaims the damsel, “that all their everyday boots are in that unlucky trunk?” There is a humble murmur that Chattie had promised to be very careful, but it produces a hotter reply.  “As if Chattie’s promises of that kind could be trusted!  And I had TOLD them that they were to keep with baby on the cliff!” Then came a real apology for interfering with Jane’s