?"

"People say there are no mermaids," stammered Nelly.

"There are; only mortals cannot see them unless I give the power. Be
quick! I don't like the sand. Choose, and let me be off!" commanded the
Great Gull, with an impatient flutter of its wide wings.

"Then I'll be a mermaid, please. I always wanted to see one, and it must
be very nice to live always in the water."

"Done!" said the gull, and was gone like a flash.

Nelly rubbed her eyes, and looked about her rather scared; but nothing
had happened to her yet, and she was just going to complain that the
bird had cheated her, when the sound of soft voices made her climb the
rock behind her to see who was singing down there.

She nearly fell off again when she spied two pretty little creatures
floating to and fro on the rocking waves. Both had long brown hair,
green eyes as clear as crystal, pale faces, and the sweetest voices
Nelly had ever heard. But the strange thing was that each little body
ended in a shining tail,--one all golden, the other all silver scales.
Their little breasts and arms were white as foam, and they wore
bracelets of pearls, strings of rosy shells about their necks, and
garlands of gay sea-weed in their hair. They were singing as they
rocked, and throwing bubbles to and fro as if playing ball. They saw
Nelly in a moment, and tossing a great rainbow-colored bubble toward
her, cried gayly,--

"Come and play, little friend. We know you, and have often tried to make
you see us when you float and dive so bravely in our sea."

"I long to come; but it is so deep there and the waves are so rough that
I should be dashed on the rocks," answered Nelly, charmed to see real
mermaids at last, and eager to go to them.

"We came for you. The King-gull told us to call you. Slip off your
clothes and spring down to us; then we will change you, and you can have
your wish," said the mermaids, holding up their arms to her.

"My mother said I must not go into the sea," began Nelly, sadly.

"What is a mother?" asked one little sea-maid, while the other laughed
as if the word amused her.

"Why, don't you know? Don't you have fathers and mothers down there?"
cried Nelly, so surprised that she forgot her wish for a moment.

"No; we are born of the moon and the sea, and we have no other parents,"
said Goldfin, the shining one.

"How dreadful!" exclaimed Nelly. "Who takes care of you, and where do
you live? Without fathers and mothers you cannot have any h