A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.

sea; perhaps we shall learn something. Give me the shell, Jack.” She put
it close to her ear, and smiled brightly.

“T hear a little mermaid softly singing, that far away under the deep blue
sea is a land filled with strange and lovely flowers, not like ours here on earth,
but living flowers, the beautiful many-colored sea anemones. Tangled sea-
weeds hang in gay festoons from the pink and white coral reefs, where the
tiny merman musicians breathe out strange, weird music from the conch shells,
and the mermaids float in the shallow pools, lit by silver moonbeams. Some-
times the mermen and mermaids rise through the waves hand in hand, sing-
ing sweet songs to the sailors; but human eyes cannot see them: they mis-
take their flowing hair for white sea foam. Our little mermaid says she came
from the other side of the world, but lingering on the sands near the spot
where you were playing, she

   

ne aaa eg

lost her companions, who all ae
floated back on the crests
of the waves. So, feeling
frightened and lonely she
crept into this pretty shell.”

“Have we really caught -—
amermaid?” interrupted .
Dot, with wide-open eyes. She implicitly believed
all Molly’s stories, and was constantly finding traces
of fairy rings on the lawn, or seeing some tiny-

 

winged creature rocking in the lily bells.
“T shall paste the shell up. She sha’n’t get out

 

again,” said Jack.

“Then you will never hear her voice,” said Molly: “she must have breath-
ing space.”

“Why can’t I hear the mermaid singing all that as well as you?” asked
Jack.

‘Perhaps because the mermaids tell me their secrets,” laughed Molly.

‘Ah! but when the waves ripple against the cliff at high tide, they sing
the same song as the shell, —

‘Come away, Jack,
Come away.’

Molly, I shall go some day.”