DEAR SISTERS:—I have gone and done it! Now let me give you a little wholesome advice. It comes out of my superior knowledge of the world, and experience of the human heart. Never say that you won't do a thing, because if you do, just as sure as you live it is the very thing that you are sure to plunge into, whether you want to or not. Besides, people who know enough to doubt themselves, understand that men and women are made up principally of human nature. Now human nature is a great fraud, and isn't to be trusted when he's found in the interior of your own heart, or anywhere else.

In one of my reports, I expressed myself as shocked out of a year's growth, when I heard about gentlemen and ladies going into the salt-sea waves together, and submerging themselves like mermaids in the swell and foam of the ocean. I said, in the heat and glow of modest feminine shrinkitiveness, that nothing on earth, or in the water, should induce me to do it; but circumstances alter cases, and the capacity of eternal change is the essence of genius, which is always making new combinations and discarding old prejudices.

I say it with reluctance, but truth demands frankness. Sometimes I am a little hasty in my conclusions.

Have I said enough—need I go on to explain that the result of a thing proves its propriety?

Now, bathing in company, in the abstract, does seem—well, peculiar. I might add other words which at one time came uppermost in my mind; but, looking toward results, I feel constrained to say nothing on the social aspect of multitudinous ablutions, but go into the high moral question which has slowly presented itself to my understanding.

Isn't there a passage of Scripture somewhere that speaks about "fishers of men"? I think there is, and I am inclined to see that kind of business from a high moral stand-point. If men are to be legally caught with a dripping dress and an old straw hat for bait, who shall say that the thing is wrong? If men are told to go down to the sea in ships, what should prevent a female woman from going down in a four-cornered straw hat, a flannel tunic, and—well, pantalettes on? Everything depends on the point of view from which one sees a thing.

As a marine picture, salt-sea waves rushing in upon a sandy beach can hardly be considered complete without throwing a little life into the foreground; but when that life is composed of a flock of old straw hats, and a lot of staggery, blinded, dripping people under them, I can't say that I hanker after this particular marine view.

From an artistic stand-point then I reject the whole subject; but as the means of catching a heart afloat, that same picture offers numerous facilities.

Well, sisters, as a social institution I no longer sneer at sea-bath flirtations. When two days of them end in matrimony, it isn't worth while to fight out the question on that line any longer. I give in.

Such engagements may be unstable as water, but a damp engagement is better than none at all.

With these sentiments, I finished off my bathing-dress, and put a red ribbon over a high-crowned, square-brimmed hat, coarse and clumsy, which was to keep my face from the sun, and my flowing tresses from the briny ocean waves.

Early in the morning I went out into the veranda, and took a survey of the ocean—the broad infinite expanse of waters into which I was about to plunge in search of—well, health.

In front of the veranda, on the high bank, was a pole, like the liberty-poles we run up on almost every village green of New England. On that pole a pale yellow flag was flying.

A chill ran over me, and I know that my arms must have been roughened like a grater.

"The yellow-fever." I knew it was in the harbor, shut up there by the authorities. Had it escaped through Sandy Hook, and come poisoning the waters along shore? Now that I was ready for the first plunge, were my best hopes to be frustrated? Had I sat up all night sewing red braid on that tunic, and those—well, Turkish pantalettes, for nothing? Had I conquered a great New England prejudice, to be conquered myself by careless health officers? Why hadn't they taken an example by some of the old stock, and divided the whole thing among them in perquisites? I only wish they had.

Sisters, it was a keen disappointment. I was looking at that yellow flag, with tears in my eyes, when Cousin E. E. came on to the veranda.

"Come, Phoemie," says she, bright as a May morning, "where is the new bathing-dress? It will be splendid bathing!"

I looked at her, I looked at the ocean and at the path that led down to the beach, along which half a dozen real nice-looking gentlemen were picking their steps like rabbits toward a sweet-apple trap. It was tantalizing.

"Yes," says she, as contented as a lamb, "it will be lovely bathing this morning; I mean to try it."

"Try it," says I; "haven't you read that yellow-fever is in the harbor?"

"Well, what then?" says she. "It won't hurt us."

"Won't hurt us," says I. "Did you ever hear of poison getting into water that could be washed out? No, if it is in the harbor, some of it will drift down here. Look, you can see it sweltering in the waves now."

She looked out on the ocean, where a faint yellow tinge rippled and shone with treacherous temptatiousness.

"Oh, that is only the sunshine," says she.

"But the fever," says I, "I know it is in the harbor, for the newspapers said so. They have run up the yellow flag wherever it is to be found. See there."

Cousin E. E. sat down and dropped both hands in her lap.

"Cousin Phoemie," says she, "I really don't know whether you are a real genius or the greatest goose that ever lived. You are just a puzzle to me. Who ever heard of yellow-fever in the water?"

"I have," says I, "in the harbor, and isn't the harbor all water?"

"Yes," says she, "that is true."

"Then, isn't it dangerous to bathe in that water, and don't that flag give us warning not to do it?"

"Cousin," says she; "as I said before, you know too much for common ideas to make an impression. Now do try to understand. There is one ship in the harbor that has yellow-fever on board—that is all. It will not be allowed to spread from that one ship."

"Oh," says I, drawing a deep breath, "then it has not poisoned the water."

"Not at all."

"But the yellow flag?"

"That means good bathing, and plenty of it. Come along. Don't you see people crowding down to the shore?"