staring down into the blue waves, and when he raised his head there
would be a puzzled look in the little fellow's blue eyes, as though he
were trying to solve a riddle. Then Gil would laugh; whereat the wrinkle
would smooth itself from Jan's forehead, and a smile would come about
his mouth. He would throw his arm about his brother's shoulder,
saying,--

"What strange thing is it, brother, that the old sea does to me? I think
sometimes that I am bewitched." But Gil would only laugh again, thinking
his own thoughts. It gave him a pleasant important feeling to know that
he was the keeper of Jan's secret.

Meantime what had become of the Sea-baby's forgotten mother? What was
the pretty Mermaid doing in her home under the waves? She was learning
the lesson which the Stork had meant to teach.

At first she had not greatly missed the Sea-baby, having other things to
interest her in the lovely world where she lived. But as the sea-days
went by she began to find the grotto which had been their pretty home a
very lonely place indeed. She missed the little fellow playing with the
shells and starfish on the floor of shining sand. She longed to see him
teasing the crabs in the crevices of the rocks, or tickling the
sea-anemones to make them draw in their waving fingers. She missed the
round blue eyes which used to look at her so admiringly, and the little
hands which had once wearied her with their caresses. She even missed
the mischievous tricks which the baby sometimes used to play upon his
mother, and she would have been glad once more to see him running away
with her pearly mirror, or with the golden comb with which she combed
her long green hair.

As she watched the other sea-children playing merrily with the fishes
the lonely Mermaid grew very sad, for she knew that her own baby had
been the prettiest of them all, and she wondered how she could ever have
been ashamed of him. The other mothers were proud of their darlings, and
now they scorned her because she had no little one to hold her mirror
when she made her toilet, or to run her errands when she was busy at
play. But the poor Mermaid was too sad to play nowadays. She no longer
took any pleasure in the gay life which the Mer-folk lived beneath the
waves. She wandered instead here and there, up and down the sea,
calling, calling for her lost baby. The sound of her sobbing came from
the sea at morning, noon, and night.

She did not know her child's fate, but she fear