After that, as I grew older, Leghorn meant just the sea in some of its most enchanting aspects, for it was very rarely that we missed our few weeks of bathing there in September, if we had spent the summer in the north. It was the beginning of the autumn homecoming; we took an apartment on the long, bright boulevard that faces the sea, the cook and one or two of the servants came up from Rome to look after us, and, always, we had a royally good time. The last, I think, was the best of all, happening after a memorable summer in the Bagni de Lucca, which I have described elsewhere. My sister had just become engaged, and her fiancé, Erich von Rabe, of course followed us to Leghorn. Hugh Fraser was there, occupied mostly, it seemed to me, in saving the Paget children from getting drowned, since they would attempt to follow their indomitable young mother in her long swims out into the deep. Lady Paget did everything beautifully; she was built like a goddess and could not do anything else, whether she rode or danced or glided about in great old rooms or flowery gardens; but she never seemed more of a goddess than when she stood for an instant in her clinging draperies with her arms above her head and then leapt, like a curved arrow, out and down into the sun-kissed waves. One held one’s breath while they engulfed her—and then, yards beyond, up came that proud, small head, and away she would go, with long, easy strokes, a being at one with the sun and the sea—a joy to behold. All that was in the morning when the spaces under the big tents on the outrunning piers of the _stabilimenti_ were crowded to the very edge with cheery, chattering groups, the ladies embroidering as fast as they talked, the children romping, the young men making love, and the old people, who would not face the cold joy of a plunge, smiling benignly on it all. The piers were low, and a sudden gust of wind would fling the salt water up without warning; then there were shrieks mingled with laughter, flurrying of skirts and scraping of chairs and snatching up of babies, and all the fun of settling down again, only to renew the game at the next shower. This gathering only took place in the morning. As soon as the sun was right overhead, the ladies packed their fancy-work into their reticules, wiped the remains of _ciambelle_ from the children’s mouths, straightened their hats—all with an incessant fire of chatter like that of a tree full of roosting sparrows suddenly disturbed—and away everybody trailed along the blazing white boulevard for home, midday dinner, and the rapturous quiet of the siesta afterwards.