Like everything else, dancing is hurrying along, and growing faster every year. The _deux-temps_, they say is coming back. May the day be far ahead when that step reigns once more! Perhaps before then I shall be converted into a chaperone, and shall sit watching others dance, not being able to do so myself; or, perhaps worse, not being _asked_ myself. I am afraid I should not make a nice chaperone. I should look very cross, and should hurry away as early as possible. Ah, sad indeed will the day be when I give up dancing, when only the remembrance of my past enjoyments will be brought back to me through the scent of gardenias and tube-roses, dear dissipated-smelling flowers! CHAPTER XII. ON WATERING PLACES. What a great deal of trouble and time it takes to choose a watering-place! And yet there are many and various kinds of resorts, some for one season, some for another. If you could be carried sufficiently high above the earth so as to have a bird's-eye view of the whole of Great Britain, what a strange sight it would present during the months of August and September! The county would appear surrounded with a human fringe, the outer edge more resembling a disturbed ants' hill than anything else. I don't suppose we should appear more significant than ants at that distance. There are those places teeming with shop-keepers and children, when you can scarcely see the beach so covered is it with those who are making the most of their one holiday in the year. There is the primitive little village, discovered by few, which is welcomed by the city man who wants rest and entire seclusion from business matters and the world for a month or two. And oh, what language he uses! and how annoyed he is to find absolutely nothing to do--one post a day, and, worst of all, no newspaper until late in the afternoon! And this is the man who wishes to be shut out from the world and from his acquaintances! There is no pier, there are no amusements. The esplanade is composed of nothing more than a plank of wood, on which, in walking you have to observe much caution in order to keep your balance; and sometimes the butcher from the neighboring village forgets to call! In desperation, the unfortunate creature digs sand-castles with his children, and, after a few days of his banishment, grows quite excited as the waves wash up and undermine their foundations. He picks acquaintance with anybody he comes across, be he peer or peasant--anything to make the time pass a little quicker until he can return to the stir of his business life again.