re all very like each other,
and a baby that wasn't like others would not _be_ a baby! To Floss I
fancy he seemed a remarkable baby, but that may have been because he
was her very own, and the only baby she had ever known. He was certainly
very good, in so far as he gave nurse exceedingly little trouble, but
why children should give trouble when they are perfectly well, and have
everything they can possibly want, I have never been able to decide. On
the whole, I think it must have something to do with the people who take
care of them, as well as with themselves.

Now we will say good-bye to Carrots, as a baby.

CHAPTER II.

SIX YEARS OLD.

"As for me, I love the sea,
The dear old sea!
Don't you?"

_Song._

I think I said there was nothing very remarkable about the place where
Carrots lived, but considering it over, I am not quite sure that you
would agree with me. It was near the sea for one thing, and _that_ is
always remarkable, is it not? _How_ remarkable, how wonderful and
changeful the sea is, I doubt if any one can tell who has not really
lived by it, not merely visited it for a few weeks in the fine summer
time, when it looks so bright and sunny and inviting, but lived by it
through autumn and winter too, through days when it looks so dull and
leaden, that one can hardly believe it will ever be smiling and playful
again, through fierce, rough days, when it lashes itself with fury, and
the wind wails as if it were trying to tell the reason.

Carrots' nursery window looked straight out upon the sea, and many and
many an hour Floss and he spent at this window, watching their strange
fickle neighbour at his gambols. I do not know that they thought the sea
at all wonderful. I think they were too much accustomed to it for that,
but they certainly found it very _interesting_. Floss had names for the
different kinds of waves; some she called "ribs of beef," when they
showed up sideways in layers as it were, of white and brown, and some
she called "ponies." That was the kind that came prancing in, with a
sort of dance, the white foam curling and rearing, and tossing itself,
just exactly like a frisky pony's mane. Those were the prettiest waves
of all, I think.

It was not at all a dangerous coast, where the Cove House, that was
Carrots' home, stood. It was not what is called "picturesque." It was a
long flat stretch of sandy shore, going on and on for mi