All which sacrifices to _Bona Dea_ are pretty uniform, if we may not say that, although young women have as good a right to outrage modesty by splashing about perfectly nude in the sea as the men have, they know better than do any such naughty thing. Nor, perhaps, was it any exception, that as they went into the sea they took each other by the hand, just as Adam and Eve did when they walked hand in hand into a flood of sin, as enticing to them, too, as the shining water was to our virgins--a comparison more true than you may be at present thinking. Then having got up to the middle--that is, in a sense, half seas over, they got into that sportive mood which belongs to bathers, as if an infection from the playful element; and, of course, they could not avoid the usual ducking, which is performed by the two taking hold of both hands, and alternately or simultaneously dipping themselves over head, and as they emerge shaking their locks as the ducks do their wings when they come out of the water. All which was very pleasant, as might have been apparent from the laughing and screighing which terrified the Tom Norries there and then flying over their heads; but it so happened that in one of these see-saws Isabella’s foot slipped, and the consequence was that her hands slipped also out of those of Mary, so that she fell back into the water, more afraid, of course, than hurt; nor was this all, for no sooner had Isabella got on her feet again than holding out her left hand she cried in rather a wild way that she had lost her ruby ring--nay, that very ring which a certain George Ballennie had given her as a pledge of his love, and the loss of which was so like an augury of evil. And then as it was Mary’s hand which pulled it off, or rather Isabella’s that left it in Mary’s, it was natural she should ask at the same time whether Mary had it or had felt it, but Mary asserted that she had it not, neither had she felt it when coming off. So if Mary was honest it behoved to be in the sea, and in all likelihood would never be found again.