flowing military moustache with a tinge of red in it. His father and
he were built on the same lines--long, spare bodies, short necks and
legs, and short, spare arms, and if the father's white hair were dyed
the years that separated him from his son would disappear, for
although the son had only just turned thirty, he was middle-aged in
face and feeling.

Sally and Grace were both thickly built, the latter a little inclined
to fat. Maggie was thin and elegantly angular, and often stood in
picturesque attitudes; she stood in one now, with her hands linked
behind her back, and she watched her father, and her look was subtle
and insinuating.

"When I came here," he said, speaking rapidly, and as if he were
speaking to himself, "the place was well enough; there was nothing but
those wretched cottages facing the sea, the green, and a few cottages
about it; but since those villas have been put up, Southwick has
become unbearable. All my troubles," he murmured, "originated in the
Southdown Road."

Maggie turned aside, smiled, and bit her lip; she did not speak,
however, for she knew her father did not care to be interrupted in his
musings.

"A hateful place--glass porticoes, and oleographs on the walls." Here
Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk to admire one of his favourite Friths.
"Those ridiculous haberdashers, with a bas-relief of the founder of
their house over the doorway. The proprietors of the baths, the
Measons, poor as church mice, the son a mate of a merchant vessel--
these are not proper associates for my daughters. I will not know