When first I saw Torquay and Torbay (I am afraid to think how many years ago), and the long line of curving coast stretching away past _parvenu_ Paignton to Berry Head, I thought that here was a veritable fairyland amongst seaside resorts. Many things have happened since then: the South Devon coast, once so solitary, so quiet, has everywhere its fringe of trim-built villas; the lonely coombes, once the home of rabbits and some few fishermen, echoing only with the querulous cries of sea-gulls, are now filled, or are filling, with bungalows, as quick-multiplying as were those ousted rabbits, and the brazen clang of German bands makes miserable the soul of man. These are the defects that make this fairyland of other years something less gracious and more prosaic than before; but bungalows and bands, and other kindred afflictions of a popular populous watering-place, have power only to discount, not altogether to bankrupt, its charm. And charming is still the epithet for Torquay, seated majestically on its many hills. So charming is it, that the witchery of the place gets into the head of the average young man o’ nights, like so much champagne, and sitting by one of the many hillside winding walks overlooking the bay, you may hear him declare to his _inamorata_ that he loves her with a love transcending all other affections, past, present, or to come. And so these silly folk become engaged, and, one of these fateful days, they marry and go a-honeymooning in the Isle of Wight (an isle ordained by the Creator for such functions), presently to discover that life is not made up altogether of summer nights at Torquay, nor at Shanklin neither; also that, however warmly one may love, still number one remains, after all, when the flush of romance has worn off, the object of the most jealous and enduring affection. You see, Torquay is responsible for a great deal of match-making. Young folks have in after years much reason to cur--well, er, that is, to bless, the place. How many declarations have I heard while lounging at twilight on the Cliff Walk! How many gay and giddy flirtations at Anstey’s Cove or Berry Pomeroy! Ah! delusive coast of Devon, inciting to the rashest of all conceivable rashnesses, you have proved the undoing of many a butterfly bachelor. I have said enough to convince you, I think, that Torquay is a dangerous place. It is all the more so, in that, being essentially modern, there is nothing in the way of antiquities to explore in the town itself. This fact, together with that other of a warm and languorous climate, that invites to rest rather than to recreative efforts, to whispered confidences, to tentative kissing and waist-clasping on the sheltered Rock Walk above the Torbay road, shapes softly the social features of Torquay and the plastic destinies of youth.