When one considers the conditions of its accumulation, one is not surprised to hear that the element of fiction is as dominant in this Deep Sea Library as it is upon the counters of Messrs. Mudie; but my cousin learnt that the various illustrated magazines, and particularly the fashion papers, are valued even more highly than novels, are looked for far more eagerly and perused with envious emotion. Indeed on that point my cousin got a sudden glimpse of one of the motives that had brought this daring young lady into the air. He made some sort of suggestion. "We should have taken to dressing long ago," she said, and added, with a vague quality of laughter in her tone, "it isn't that we're unfeminine, Mr. Melville. Only--as I was explaining to Mrs. Bunting, one must consider one's circumstances--how _can_ one _hope_ to keep anything nice under water? Imagine lace!" "Soaked!" said my cousin Melville. "Drenched!" said the Sea Lady. "Ruined!" said my cousin Melville. "And then you know," said the Sea Lady very gravely, "one's hair!" "Of course," said Melville. "Why!--you can never get it _dry_!" "That's precisely it," said she. My cousin Melville had a new light on an old topic. "And that's why--in the old time----?" "Exactly!" she cried, "exactly! Before there were so many Excursionists and sailors and Low People about, one came out, one sat and brushed it in the sun. And then of course it really _was_ possible to do it up. But now----" She made a petulant gesture and looked gravely at Melville, biting her lip the while. My cousin made a sympathetic noise. "The horrid modern spirit," he said--almost automatically....