Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/274

 The beach itself, colored in the last flush of the level sun, is still faintly warm to the naked foot, after the long shining of the day; but it cools rapidly. The tide is coming in, with long, seething ridges of foam, each flake and clot of crumbled water tinged with a rose-petal pink by the red sunset. All this glory of color, of movement, of unspeakable exhilaration and serenity, is utterly lonely. The long curve of the beach stretches away northward, where a solitary orange-colored dory is lying on the sand. The air is full of a plaintive piping of sea-birds. A gull flashes along the beach, with a pink glow on its snowy under-plumage.

At that hour the water is likely to be warmer than the air. It may be only the curiously magical effect of the horizontal light, but it seems more foamy, more full of suds, than earlier in the day. Over the green top of the waves, laced and marbled with froth, slides a layer of iridescent bubble-wash that seems quite a different substance from the water itself—like the meringue on top of a lemon pie. One can scoop it up and see it winking in points of sparkling light.

The waves come marching in. It is a calm sea, one would have said looking down from the dunes, but to the swimmer, elbowing his way under their leaning hollows, their stature seems tremendous. The sunlight strikes into the hills of moving water, filling them with a bluish spangle and tremor of brightness. It is worth while to duck underneath