wonders to relate as
to the strange creatures that came peeping up at them from the deep as
they were fishing. Lilly hopes they were not mermaids, for she had heard
they were very cruel, and enticed men down into the dark sea weed
caverns, from whence they never more appeared.

_Felix._--"They will never catch me doing anything so silly. I like Mama
better than twenty thousand mermaids, and so I won't be ticed, Lilly."

_Lilly._--"Enticed, my dear boy, you mean, and that signifies that you
cannot help yourself. They will carry you down into the sea, full of
great polypuses, with a hundred blood red arms."

_Oscar._--"Lilly, you are talking great stuff, no mermaids shall ever
catch Felix or me, I shall shoot them first. And besides I won't believe
there are any mermaids."

_Gatty._--"And also besides, if they did come up from the sea, and look
at Otty and Felix, I don't think they would steal them away from us,
without a great battle on our parts."

"But," said Lilly, who always stuck pertinaciously to her text, "I have
read it in a book, that they comb their long, sea-green hair, and sing
all the time so beautifully, that men jump into the sea after them."

_Felix._--"Well! I shall not do that, for green hair must be very ugly."

_Oscar._--"And you need not bother about it any more, Lilly, for I hate
singing."

_Felix._--"And we must take care of ourselves, because we are the only
two men you have got to take care of you all."

_Sybil._--"Ah! indeed that is very true, you must be very careful,
because what should we do without our protectors."

_Felix._--"Yes, but, Aunt Sib, don't you think it is very wrong of Lilly
to frighten us. Pray tell us, do mermaids really steal men away?"

_Schillie._--"What is all this nonsense about mermaids, eh? Felix." She
was told; then added, "Don't alarm yourselves, if an army of mermaids
were to come, they would not take either of you for men; so comfort
yourself, my boys, with that notion."

As most of the party agreed with her the subject dropped. After dinner
we all took a siesta for two or three hours, a necessary rest during the
heat of the day. Afterwards the same scene occurred as before dinner the
"green parasol" meandered up and down, the little ones ran about, being
now assisted by the boys, the elder ones hung about us two until
tea-time, when all had some employment again. Afterwards we chatted and
worked until the sun went down. This sometimes occurred so sudd