high and dry for some distance below this. The
fine sharp needles of rain, which at first made their eyes smart,
ceased for a time, and they watched the giant waves at their hoarse,
clamorous revel, joining the roar with their own shrieks of mirth and
excitement whenever some reckless fling of spray drenched them from
head to foot.

Edna had placed Turkish towels and their clothing in a shed at the back
of the house, and when finally the rain began again to cut their eyes
and shut away even the nearest view, she succeeded in dragging the
reluctant and dripping Sylvia thither, and they again made ready for
the house.

"Come in, you two mermaids," exclaimed Miss Lacey when they appeared.
She threw more logs on the fire. "I began to think you had gone to see
the land 'where corals lie.'"

Edna laughed and took the pins out of her hair, so that it rolled in
damp lengths about her. Sylvia's curls were gemmed with bright drops,
and both girls were rosy and sparkling from their tussle with the gale.

"Sylvia has the only hair that ever ought to go to the seashore,"
remarked Edna, looking with open admiration at the piquant face under
the jeweled diadem. "You can take a chair, Sylvia, but I shall have to
turn my back to that lovely fire."

Sylvia stretched herself luxuriously in a reclining chair before the
blaze while her hostess sank on the rug and spread her dark locks to
the heat.

"You do look like a mermaid," said Sylvia.

"Mermaids sing," remarked Edna. "Would you like to hear me sing?"

"I don't know," replied the other slowly, "whether I could stand one
more thing. I think I might pass away if you should sing, the way you
look now."

Edna laughed. "I feel like singing," she said, and jumping up, went to
the piano and pulled over the music.

"I think Miss Lacey started me by speaking about 'Where Corals Lie.'
I'll sing the Elgar 'Sea Pictures.'"

Edna had an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm of
temperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the sea
seemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparkling
drops still shining in her dark hair, poured out such strange and
moving music. It stirred Sylvia to the depths.

At the close of the song "Where Corals Lie," she sighed some comment,
and Miss Martha spoke:--

"That isn't what you'd call a _pretty_ tune, not near as pretty as a
lot that Edna sings," she remarked, "but that song goes right to my
backbone somehow