delicate that it is surprising how they could
have existed in the rough and boisterous ocean, and been cast up whole
from the depths below. In one of those beautiful bays, many years ago,
a large party was collected, on a bright afternoon in the early part of
autumn. Among the party were persons of all ages, but most of them were
young, and all were apparently very busy. Some were engaged in tending
a fire over which a pot was boiling, and others were collecting
drift-wood thrown up close under the cliff, with which to feed it. Two
or three young ladies, under the superintendence of a venerable matron,
were spreading a tablecloth, though the sand looked so smooth and clear
that it did not seem as if the most dainty of people could have required
one. Several were very eager in unpacking sundry hampers and baskets,
and in carrying the dishes and plates, and bottles of wine, and the
numerous other articles which they contained, to the tablecloth. Two
young ladies had volunteered to go with a couple of pails to fetch water
from a spring which gushed out of the cliff, cool and fresh, at some
distance off, and two young gentlemen had offered to go and, assist
them, which was very kind in the young gentlemen, as they certainly
before had not thought of troubling themselves about the matter. To be
sure the young ladies were very pretty and very agreeable, and it is
possible that their companions might not have considered the trouble
over-excessive. The youngest members of the party were as busy as the
rest, close down to the water collecting the beautiful shells which have
been mentioned. The shells were far too small to be picked up singly,
and they therefore came provided with sheets of thick letter-paper, into
which they swept them from off the sand where they had been left by the
previous high tide. A loud shout from a hilarious old gentleman, who
had constituted himself director of the entertainment, and who claimed
consequently the right of making more noise than anybody else, or indeed
than all the rest put together, now summoned them up to the tablecloth,
to which at the sound, with no lingering steps, they came, exhibiting
their treasures on their arrival to their older friends. The party
forthwith began to seat themselves round the ample tablecloth, but they
took up a good deal more room than had it been spread on a table. The
variety of attitudes they assumed was amusing. The more elderly ladies
sat very u