t think them, and I can't say
them. They don't come in words. It's more like seeing them, you know,
only you don't see them with your eyes, but with something inside
yourself. Do you know what it is when you are fishing off the rocks,
and there is no breaking of waves, only a rising and falling of the
water; and it comes swelling up about you with a sort of sob that
brings with it a whiff of fresh air every time, and makes you take in
your breath with a sort of sob too, every time--and at last you seem
to be the sea, or the sea seems to be you--it's all one; but you don't
think it."

Sammy looked at her in a blank, bewildered way. "I like it best when
you tell stories, Beth," he said, under the impression that all this
incomprehensible stuff was merely a display for his entertainment.
"Come and sit down beside me and tell stories."

"Stories don't come to me to-night," said Beth, with a tragic face.
"Do you remember the last time we were on the sands--oh! I keep
feeling--it was all so--_peaceful_, that was it. I've been wondering
ever since what it was, and that was it--peaceful;

The quiet people,
The old church steeple;
The sandy reaches
Of wreck-strewn beaches--"

"Who made that up?" said Sammy suspiciously.

"I did," Beth answered offhand. "At least I didn't make it up, it just
came to me. When I make it up it'll most likely be quite different.
It's like the stuff for a dress, you know, when you buy it. You get it
made up, and it's the same stuff, and it's quite different, too, in a
way. You've got it put into shape, and it's good for something."

"I don't believe you made it up," said Sammy doggedly. "You're
stuffing me, Beth. You're always trying to stuff me."

Beth, still leaning against the door-post, clasped her hands behind
her head and looked up at the sky. "Things keep coming to me faster
than I can say them to-night," she proceeded, paying no heed to his
remark; "not things about you, though, because nothing goes with Sammy
but jammy, clammy, mammy, and those aren't nice. I want things to
come about you, but they won't. I tried last night in bed, and what do
you think came again and again?

Yes, yes, that was his cry,
While the great clouds went sailing by;
Flashes of crimson on colder sky;
Like the thoughts of a summer's day,
Colour'd by love in a life which else were grey.

But that isn't you, you know, Sammy. Then when I stopped trying for