eard now and then, was the chorus of the
gods.

But Heaven rapt the heart of little Bell! The waves fell on her finer ear
like subtlest music; to her they were harps, and the fingers of angels were
touching them, while the thunder was "God walking overhead!"

They wandered along the sands, picking up curious shells and cream-white
pebbles, dashed with red or clouded with mazarine. Bell would hold them up
to her ear, and listen to the "little whispers," as she called them; but
the boy would skim them along the wave-tips, and shout when some great
billow caught one, and hurled it back scornfully at his feet.

Bell saw a ridge of rocks which looked like the back of a whale, running
out some distance into the sea, where the water was whiter and leaped
higher than anywhere else; and soon her dainty feet picked a way over the
jagged rocks. The boy was about to send a light shell skipping through the
surf, when his glance caught Bell standing on the highest jut of the ledge,
the wind lifting her long hair and the folds of her dress.

"Bell! Bell!"

"The stars are in the sea, brother," she replied, "and the winds are wild
here."

"Bell! Bell!"

"I cannot come to you. I fear to walk over the rocks again! But it is
beautiful here, and I am not afraid!"

"Ah, Bell!" he spoke sadly, "that's what I dreamt. I thought that there was
a gulf between us, and when I called, 'Bell! Bell!' you answered, '_I
cannot come to you, brother; but you can come to me!_' O, Bell--sister
Bell! as you love me, come back. I tremble when you look so like an angel.
Come to me, sister."

Mortimer ran out on the slender bridge of stone and led Bell back by the
hand. After a little while they heard Nanny calling them to come home.

The children occupied a small chamber over the front door. A scented vine
clomb all about the window, and taught the ruddy sun at morning to throw a
subdued light into the room; and it broke the orange stream of sunset. At
night the dreamers from their bed could see the stars hanging like fruit
among its cloudy leaves.

When Bell and Mortimer came up from the sea-beach, the moonlight, breaking
through this leafy lattice, made the chamber as that of Abon Ben
Adhem--"like a lily in bloom." Nanny brought a lamp, and kissed them
good-night.

"O, we don't want a lamp all this moon!" cried Bell.

The boy sat half undressed at the window. "Bell loves moonlight like a
fairy," he said.

Bell's robe fell to her knees in sn