The fresh, youthful, cheerful man who stood up in his place had drunk deep of the breezes that sweep The Front at Brighton; his cheeks were burned by the blaze of a splendid spring sun; in the budding, blossoming vital air around him he had taken some of that eternal hopefulness with which the new birth of nature in the spring inspires every human being with any freshness of sensation left.

Perchance from his windows in the Lion Mansion he had looked in the evening over the broad expanse of frontierless waters, and risen to the exaltation of the chainless unrest, the tireless and eternal youth, the illimitable breadth of the sea.

At all events, he stood before the House visibly younger, brighter, serener than for many a day.
The voice bore traces of the transformation of body and soul which this short visit to the sea has produced.

It was soft, mellow, strong.

There were none of the descents to pathetic and inaudible whispers which occasionally in the hours of fag and fatigue have painfully impressed the sympathetic hearer.