The crowd was composed mostly of women--about three to every
man, I should say--and their children; and it was one of the
most interesting crowds I had ever come across on account of
the large number of persons in it of a peculiarly fine type,
which chance had brought together at that spot. It was the
large English blonde, and there were so many individuals of
this type that they gave a character to the crowd so that
those of a different physique and colour appeared to be fewer
than they were and were almost overlooked. They came from
various places about the country, in the north and the
Midlands, and appeared to be of the well-to-do classes; they,
or many of them, were with their families but without their
lords. They were mostly tall and large in every way, very
white-skinned, with light or golden hair and large light blue
eyes. A common character of these women was their quiet
reposeful manner; they walked and talked and rose up and sat
down and did everything, in fact, with an air of deliberation;
they gazed in a slow steady way at you, and were dignified,
some even majestic, and were like a herd of large beautiful
white cows. The children, too, especially the girls, some
almost as tall as their large mothers, though still in short
frocks, were very fine. The one pastime of these was
paddling, and it was a delight to see their bare feet and
legs. The legs of those who had been longest on the spot
--probably several weeks in some instances--were of a deep
nutty brown hue suffused with pink; after these a gradation of
colour, light brown tinged with buff, pinkish buff and cream,
like the Gloire de Dijon rose; and so on to the delicate
tender pink of the clover blossom; and, finally, the purest
ivory white of the latest arrivals whose skins had not yet