Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/887



it is not raining; and there are not only French and English modistes but Italian confectioners; one sees Italian names almost as commonly as in New York, and they seem rather fond of Folkestone, where they mistake the air for that of the Riviera. This street of shops (which abounds in circulating libraries) soon ceases into a street of the self-respectful dwellings of the local type, and from the midst of these rises the bulk of the Pleasure Gardens Theatre, to which I addicted myself, in my constant love of the drama, without even the small reciprocation which I experience from it at home. In the season, the Pleasure Gardens adjacent are given up to many sorts of gayety, but during our stay there was no merriment madder than the wild hilarity of a croquet tournament; this, I will own, I had not the heart to go and pay sixpence to see.

The note of Folkestone is distinctly formality. I do not say the highest fashion, for I have been told that this is