you ever lived by the sea? And on stormy evenings, when rain was
rattling on the window-pane, and the wind went screaming around the
house, have you ever imagined there were queer calls, and have you seen
strange shapes thrown up by the waves?

Or have you ever heard an old sailor or an old fisherman tell stories of
the deep? If not, you cannot take in the kind of spell or enchantment
that lingers about the sea after listening to these sounds or hearing
these stories. They are all mixed up with the "myth" stories you heard
of a little way back.

But these stories have been told ever since the world was young. And the
mermaids are said to be daughters of the river-god that have lived ever
in the deep and sounding ocean.

And they were strange and weird--that is, wild, unnatural, and witching.
They would appear in both calm and stormy weather.

Sirens were sometimes thought to be different from mermaids, but we
fishes know them to be one and the same thing--that is, if they exist at
all. It used to be said that a mermaid murmured, but that a siren sang,
with dangerous sweetness. Both murmur and both sing, one as much as the
other.

They will all at once be seen poised on perilous rocks, their long and
splendid hair floating back in the wild wind, their eyes shining like
stars, their faces bright and glorious, their white arms and gleaming
shoulders rising like snow from midst the dark and stormy waves.

Ah! the singing, the beckoning, and the coaxing of a mermaid! Let me
tell you how they work.

They have a sly, four-legged creature on land, all dressed in fur, and
sporting a fine, thick tail, and they say that when this Madame Puss
wants to catch a bird that is wheeling in the air, she will manage to
first catch its eye. Then the little creature will not be able to look
away, but will wheel and circle, and circle and wheel, all the time
coming nearer, until, if no one frightens Madame Puss away, she will
keep her yellow eye fixed on the eye that she has caught, until the bird
flies close to her and is caught.

This is called "charming a bird." And the truth must be that poor
birdie, after catching sight of that great, shining eye, does not see
Madame Puss herself, but only the bright eye, and being unable to look
away, flies nearer and nearer the strange, glittering light, until
Madame Puss makes a spring, and all is over.

[Illustration: "WHITE FACES SEEMED TO RISE AND RIDE ATOP OF THE FOAMING
BILLOWS"]

Ju