Alice and Beatrice

								

their bathing dresses; for their grandmamma liked them to bathe in the
sea whenever the weather was warm and the sun shone.
There was a tent at the foot of the cliff, for a steep cliff rose very
high a little way from the sea-shore on each side of the narrow valley
through which they had to come. In this tent the two little girls went
to undress and get ready for bathing. Mary helped them; and when they
had put on their bathing dresses, Mary did the same, and went into the
sea with them.
Alice ran into the water alone, and jumped over the little waves that
came rolling gently on to the shore. Beatrice took hold of Mary’s hand,
but she was not afraid, and she dipped her face and hands into the
waves, and she tried to jump about like Alice.
Then Beatrice asked Mary to let her float; and Mary held Beatrice’s
head, and the little girl lay quite stiff and quiet on the water, and
her feet and body floated, which she liked very much.
‘Please, Mary,’ said Alice, ‘let me try and float too.’ And Mary let
Beatrice stand by her side and floated Alice backwards and forwards.
‘When I am a little older,’ said Alice, ‘grandmamma says that I must
learn to swim.’
‘And I, too,’ said Beatrice.
After the children had jumped about a short time in the waves, and were
quite warm, their grandmamma said—
‘Come out now, you have been in the water long enough;’ and the little
girls came out and ran into the tent, where they were soon dried and
dressed, for their grandmamma helped them too, and they made haste to go
home, up the many steps and steep path, and were glad to have their
dinner, because they were hungry after their bath.

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CHAPTER II.



                    EVENING WALK—STEAMER—LACEMAKING.

THE weather had been very hot—so hot that the children had had no walk,
but had spent most of the day in the shade under the long verandah, and
in the afternoon they had played under a large tree in the garden. When
the evening came it was much cooler; and after the little girls had had
their tea, grandmamma told them that she would take them over the high
hill at the back of the house to visit a poor woman who had been ill.
Their grandmamma’s house was half-way up the hill—you could see the sea
through a narrow valley; and opposite the house on the other side of the
valley was another high hill, and behind that hill was the town.
Grandmamma walked slowly up the hill, up a zig-zag path, and rested on a
bench half-way up, for it was a very steep hill. The little girls were
not tired, and they ran on before and waited for their grandmamma at
each turn of the path. They went higher and higher, till at last Alice
called out—
‘How much I can see now, grandmamma! I can see all the town, the houses,