-wort, and the dainty little mother of millions
creeping over the roof and walls were a part of the picturesque
cottage. The beauty of Joan Penelles was the beauty of fitness in
every part, of health, of good temper, of a certain spiritual
perception. Penelles loved her with a sure affection; he trusted in
her. In every strait of his life he went to her for comfort or advice.
He could not have imagined a single day without Joan to direct it.

For his daughter Denas he had a love perhaps not stronger, but quite
different in kind. Denas was his only living child. Denas loved the
sea. Penelles could remember her small pink feet in the tide, when
they were baby feet scarce able to stand alone. As she grew older she
often begged to go to sea with the fishers, and on warm summer nights
she had lain in the boat, and talked to him and his mates, and sung
them such wild, sweet songs that the men vowed she charmed the fish
into the nets. For they had always wondrous takes when Denas leaned
over the gunwale, and in sweet, piercing notes sang the old
fishing-call:

"Come, gray fish! gray fish!
Come from the gray cold sea!
Fathoms, fathoms deep is the wall of net.
Haddock! haddock! herring! herring!
Halibut! bass! whatever you be,
Fish! fish! fish! come pay your debt."

And while the men listened to the shrill, imperative voice mingling
with the wash of the waves, and watched the child's long yellow hair
catching the glory of the moonlight, they let her lead them as she
would. She did not fear storms. It was her father who feared them for
her, though never after one night when she was twelve years old.

"You cannot go to-night, Denas," he said; "the tide is late and the
wind is contrary."

"Well, then," the little maid answered with decision, "the contrary
wind be God's wind. 'Twas whist poor speed the fishers were once
making--toiling and rowing--and the wind contrary, when He came
walking on the water and into the boat, and then, to be sure, all was
quiet enough."

There were no words to dispute this position, and Denas went with the
fishers, and sat singing like a spirit while the boat kissed the wind
in her teeth. And anon the tide turned, and the wind changed, and
there was a lull, and so the nets were well shot, and they came back
to harbour before the breeze just at cock-light--that is, when the
cocks begin to crow for the dawning.

Thus petted and loved, the pretty girl made her way into all hearts,
a