and beautifully clear. She
climbed up to the nearest pool, and gave a loud scream of delight, for
there, under her eye, was a miniature flower-garden, made by the
fairies, it would seem, and filled with dahlia-shaped and
hollyhock-shaped things, purple, crimson, and deep orange; which were
flowers to all appearance, and yet must be animals; for they opened
and shut their many-tinted petals, and moved and swayed when she
dipped her fingers in and splashed the water about. There were green
spiky things, too, exactly like freshly fallen chestnut burrs,
lettuce-like leaves,--pale red ones, as fine as tissue-paper,--and
delicate filmy foliage in soft brown and in white. Yellow snails clung
to the sides of the pool, vivid in color as the blossom of a
trumpet-creeper; and, as she lay with her face close to the surface of
the water, a small, bright fish swam from under the leaves, and darted
across the pool like a quick sun ray. Never, even in her dreams, had
Eyebright imagined any thing like it, and in her delight she gave
Genevieve a great hug, and cried:--

"Aren't you glad I brought you, dear, and oh, isn't it beautiful?"

There were several pools, one above another, and each higher one
seemed more beautiful than the next below. The very biggest "dahlia"
of all--Anemone was its real name, but Eyebright did not know
that--was in the highest of these pools, and Eyebright lay so long
looking at it and giving it an occasional tickle with her forefinger
to make it open and shut, that she never noticed how fast the tide was
beginning to pour in. At last, one great wave rolled up and broke
almost at her feet, and she suddenly bethought herself that it might
be time to go. Alas! the thought came too late, as in another minute
she saw. The rocks at the side, down which she had climbed, were cut
off by deep water. She hurried across to the other side to see if it
were not possible to get out there; but it was even worse, and the
tide ran after as she scrambled back, and wetted her ankles before she
could gain the place where she had been sitting before she made this
disagreeable discovery. That wasn't safe either, for pretty soon a
splash reached her there, and she took Genevieve in her arms and
climbed up higher still, feeling like a hunted thing, and as if the
sea were chasing her and would catch her if it possibly could.

It was a great comfort just then to recollect what Mr. Downs had said
about the cave being safe enough for