potted aloft with bright yellow
lichens, and black drops of tar, polished lower down by the surge of
centuries, and towards the foot of the wall roughened with crusts
of barnacles, and mussel-nests in crack and cranny, and festoons of
coarse dripping weed.

On a low rock at its foot, her back resting against the Cyclopean
wall, sits a young woman of eight-and-twenty, soberly, almost primly
dressed, with three or four tiny children clustering round her. In
front of them, on a narrow spit of sand between the rocks, a dozen
little girls are laughing, romping, and pattering about, turning the
stones for "shannies" and "bullies," and other luckless fish left by
the tide; while the party beneath the pier wall look steadfastly down
into a little rock-pool at their feet,--full of the pink and green
and purple cut-work of delicate weeds and coralline, and starred with
great sea-dahlias, crimson and brown and grey, and with the waving
snake-locks of the Cercus, pale blue, and rose-tipped like the fingers
of the dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the pool, by slow
pantings of its crystal bell; and on it the eyes of the whole group
are fixed,--for it seems to be the subject of some story which the
village schoolmistress is finishing in a sweet, half-abstracted
voice,--

"And so the cruel soldier was changed into a great rough red starfish,
who goes about killing the poor mussels, while nobody loves him, or
cares to take his part; and the poor little girl was changed into a
beautiful bright jelly-fish, like that one, who swims about all day in
the pleasant sunshine, with a red cross stamped on its heart."

"Oh, mistress, what a pretty story!" cry the little ones, with tearful
eyes. "And what shall we be changed to when we die?"

"If we will only be good we shall go up to Jesus, and be beautiful
angels, and sing hymns. Would that it might be soon, soon; for you and
me, and all!" And she draws the children, to her, and looks upward, as
if longing to bear them with her aloft.

Let us leave the conversation where it is, and look into the face of
the speaker, who, young as she is, has already meditated so long upon
the mystery of death that it has grown lovely in her eyes.

Her figure is tall, graceful, and slight, the severity of its outlines
suiting well with the severity of her dress, with the brown stuff gown
and plain grey whittle. Her neck is long, almost too long: but all
defects are forgotten in the first look at