About this story
Fred and his father haul her ashore on a ladder, and only once she is settled indoors does anyone notice the tail beneath her borrowed wrapper. The Sea Lady asks for dinner, land clothes, and an audience with a name she finally gives up: Harry Chatteris, expected that evening, whom she says she crossed more than the Channel to see again.
How it opens
August sun lay bright on the private beach below the Buntings' rented villa near Sandgate Castle.
Wooden groynes divided the shingle while the Channel moved in small grey and purple folds.
Mrs BuntingMabel, keep watch from the oak seat until you are ready to join the girls.
I need no rope, Aunt; the water is calm enough to shame such precautions.
Choose
I will stay near Betty and Nettie, but I will not take the line.
The water looks calm, but I know that proves nothing about the current.