Such murmurings as these had arisen when Edgar, sick to death of Brighton and Eastbourne, Scarborough and Torquay, had tempted his mother to visit some more romantic and less civilised shore; where the accommodation was of the rough-and-ready order, and where there was neither parade nor pier for the exhibition of fine clothes to the music of brazen bands. For picturesque scenery Mrs. Turchill cared not a jot. All wild and rugged coasts she denounced sweepingly, as dangerous to life and limb, and therefore to be avoided. The wildest bit of scenery she could tolerate was Beachy Head; and even that grassy height she deemed objectionable. Nor did she appreciate any watering-place which could not boast a smart array of shop-windows. She liked to be tempted by trumpery modern Dresden; or to have her love of colour gratified by the latest invention in bonnets and parasols. She liked a circulating library of the old-fashioned, Miss Burney type; where she could dawdle away an hour looking at new books and papers, soothed by the sympathetic strains of a musical-box. She liked to have her son well-dressed and in a top-hat, in attendance upon her during her afternoon drive in the local fly, along a smooth chalky high-road leading to nowhere in particular. She liked to attend local concerts, or to hear Miss Snevillici, the renowned Shakespearian elocutionist, read the Trial Scene in the ‘Merchant of Venice,’ followed by Tennyson’s ‘Queen of the May.’ To poor Edgar this sea-side holiday seemed always a foretaste of purgatory. It was ever so much worse than the fortnight’s hard labour in London, for in the big city there were sights worth seeing; while here, at the stereotyped watering-place, life was one dismal round of genteel inactivity. But this year Edgar was seized with a sudden desire to hasten the annual expedition. ‘Mother, I think this lovely weather must break up before long,’ he said briskly, with a laborious affectation of cheerfulness, as he sat at dinner with his parent on the day after Daphne’s cruelty. ‘What should you say to our starting for the sea-side to-morrow?’ ‘To-morrow! My dear Edgar, that would be quite impossible. I shall want a week for packing.’ ‘A week! Surely Deborah could put your things into a portmanteau in six hours as easily as in six days.’ ‘You don’t know what you are talking about, my dear. A lady’s wardrobe is so different from a man’s. All my gowns will want looking over carefully before they are packed. And I must have Miss Piper over from Warwick to do some alterations for me. The fashions change so quickly nowadays. And some of my laces will have to be washed. And I am not sure that I shall not have to drive over to Leamington and order a bonnet. I should not like to disgrace you by appearing on the parade with a dowdy bonnet.’