ll one Sunday, when the little Naomi was
five years old, he said to his wife,--

"I hope I ain't a-pervertin' Scriptur' nor nuthin', but I can't help
thinkin' of one passage, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a merchantman
seeking goodly pearls, and when he hath found one pearl of great price,
for joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that
pearl.' Well, Mary, I've been and sold my brig last week," he said,
folding his daughter's little quiet head under his coat, "'cause it
seems to me the Lord's given us this pearl of great price, and it's
enough for us. I don't want to be rambling round the world after riches.
We'll have a little farm down on Orr's Island, and I'll have a little
fishing-smack, and we'll live and be happy together."

And so Mary, who in those days was a pretty young married woman, felt
herself rich and happy,--no duchess richer or happier. The two
contentedly delved and toiled, and the little Naomi was their princess.
The wise men of the East at the feet of an infant, offering gifts, gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, is just a parable of what goes on in every
house where there is a young child. All the hard and the harsh, and the
common and the disagreeable, is for the parents,--all the bright and
beautiful for their child.

When the fishing-smack went to Portland to sell mackerel, there came
home in Zephaniah's fishy coat pocket strings of coral beads, tiny
gaiter boots, brilliant silks and ribbons for the little fairy
princess,--his Pearl of the Island; and sometimes, when a stray party
from the neighboring town of Brunswick came down to explore the romantic
scenery of the solitary island, they would be startled by the apparition
of this still, graceful, dark-eyed child exquisitely dressed in the best
and brightest that the shops of a neighboring city could
afford,--sitting like some tropical bird on a lonely rock, where the sea
came dashing up into the edges of arbor vitae, or tripping along the wet
sands for shells and seaweed.

Many children would have been spoiled by such unlimited indulgence; but
there are natures sent down into this harsh world so timorous, and
sensitive, and helpless in themselves, that the utmost stretch of
indulgence and kindness is needed for their development,--like plants
which the warmest shelf of the green-house and the most careful watch of
the gardener alone can bring into flower. The pale child, with her
large, lustrous, dark eyes, and sensitive