to him that, like a kind enchantress, she had transformed
herself to break his passion. Yes, he saw her, as he had so often
curiously longed to see her, moving over the dry shore--she was going
back to her sea. But it was a strange, monstrous thing he saw. From her
gleaming neck down to the ground was dank, shapeless form. So a walrus
or huge seal might appear, could it totter about erect upon low,
fin-like feet. There was no grace of shape, no tapering tail, no shiny
scales, only an appearance of horrid quivering on the skin, that here
and there seemed glossy in the moonlight.

He saw her make her way toilsomely, awkwardly over the shingle of the
beach; and when she reached the shining water, it was at first so
shallow that she seemed to wade in it like a land-animal, then, when the
water was deep enough to rise up well around her, she turned to him once
more a quick glance over her shoulder. Such relief came with the sight
of her face, after this monstrous vision, that he saw the face flash on
him as a sword might flash out of darkness when light catches its blade.
Then she was gone, and he saw the form of her head in the water while
she swam swiftly across the silver track of the moonbeams and out into
the darkness beyond.

Caius looked around him with senses still drowsy and head aching sorely.
He was in no fairy region that might be the home of mermaids, but on the
bit of beach from which he had launched himself into the water. His
coat and hat lay near him, and just above the spot where he lay was the
rude epitaph of baby Day, carved by his own boyish hand so long ago.

Caius put his hand to his head, and found it badly bruised on one side.
His heart was bruised, too, partly by the sight of the monstrous body of
the lovely sea-child, partly by the fresh experience of his own weakness
and incapacity.

It was long before he dragged himself home. It seemed to him to be days
before he recovered from the weariness of that secret adventure, and he
bore the mark of the bruise on his head for many a day. The mermaid he
never saw again.

CHAPTER XI.

YEARS OF DISCRETION.

Caius Simpson took ship and crossed the sea. The influence of the
beautiful face remained with him. That which had come to him was the new
birth of mind (not spirit), which by the grace of God comes to many an
individual, but is more clearly recognised and recorded when it comes in
the life of nations--the opening of the inward eye to the