Nancy had meant to be firm about that bathhouse, but she did not
feel quite equal to it at this moment. She allowed her fancy to
play for one delightful minute with the thought of a big dressing
room; the one right next to Mrs. Ingram's, with the green awning!

"But twenty dollars a season is an outrageous rent for a
bathhouse!" she said to Bert that night.

"Oh, I don't know," he said comfortably, "We've got the money. It
amounts only to about five dollars a month, after all. I vote for
the big one."

"Well, of course it'll be just the most glorious luxury that ever
WAS," Nancy agreed happily. She loved the water, and Bert enjoyed
nothing so much in the world as an hour's swimming with the
children, but before that second summer was over they could not
but see that their enthusiasm was unshared by the majority of
their neighbours. The children all went in daily, at the
stillwater, and the few young girls Marlborough Gardens boasted
also went in, on Sundays, in marvellous costumes. At these times
there was much picturesque grouping on the pier, and the float,
and much low conversation between isolated couples, while flying
soft hair was drying. Also the men of all ages went in, for
perhaps ten minutes brisk overhand exercise, and came gasping out
for showers and rough towelling.

But Nancy's women friends did not care for sea-bathing, and she
came to feel that there was something just a trifle provincial in
the open joyousness with which the five Bradleys gathered for
their Sunday riot. If there was a morning tide they were