one between her and the sea.

After scrambling with difficulty over some rocky ledges, and stopping at
Connie's request, to let her look into a deep pool in the sand, which
somehow or other retained the water after the rest had retreated, we set
her down near the mouth of a cave, in the shadow of a rock. And there was
our dinner nicely laid for us on a flat rock in front of the cave. The
cliffs rose behind us, with curiously curved and variously angled strata.
The sun in his full splendour threw dark shadows on the brilliant yellow
sand, more and more of which appeared as the bright blue water withdrew
itself, now rippling over it as if it meant to hide it all up again, now
uncovering more as it withdrew for another rush. Before we had finished our
dinner, the foremost wavelets appeared so far away over the plain of the
sand, that it seemed a long walk to the edge that had been almost at
our feet a little while ago. Between us and it lay a lovely desert of
glittering sand.

When even Charlie and Harry had arrived at the conclusion that it was time
to stop eating, we left the shadow and went out into the sun, carrying
Connie and laying her down in the midst of "the ribbed sea-sand," which
was very ribby to-day. On a shawl a little way off from her lay her baby,
crowing and kicking with the same jollity that had possessed the boys ever
since the morning. I wandered about with Wynnie on the sands, picking
up amongst other things strange creatures in thin shells ending in
vegetable-like tufts, if I remember rightly. My wife sat on the end of
Connie's litter, and Dora and the boys, a little way off, were trying how
far the full force of three wooden spades could, in digging a hole, keep
ahead of the water which was ever tumbling in the sand from the sides of
the same. Behind, the servants were busy washing the plates in a pool, and
burying the fragments of the feast; for I made it a rule wherever we went