Once or twice there would be a tennis party, then silence...
This summer was a very hot one; the little garden was stifling and the glass bottles cracked in the sun.
"I want to get out.I want to get out," cried Maggie-so she went down to the sea.She went surreptitiously; this was the first surreptitious thing she had done.She gazed from the Promenade that began just beyond the little station and ran the length of the town down upon the sands.The beach was a small one compared with the great stretches of Merton and Buquay, and the space was covered now so thickly with human beings that the sand was scarcely visible.It was a bright afternoon, hot but tempered with a little breeze.The crowd bathed, paddled, screamed, made sand-castles, lay sleeping, flirting, eating out of paper bags, reading, quarrelling.Here were two niggers with banjoes, then a stout lady with a harmonium, then a gentleman drawing pictures on the sand; here again a man with sweets on a tray, here, just below Maggie, a funny old woman with a little hut where ginger-beer and such things were sold.The noise was deafening; the wind stirred the sand curiously so that it blew up and about in little wreaths and spirals.Everything and everybody seemed to be covered with the grit of this fine small sand; it was in Maggie's eyes, nose, and mouth as she watched.