esist no longer.

Little Mary Louise had never before seen such beautiful long hair. It
spread like a scarf from the girl's shoulders down upon the sand.

Mary Louise had forgotten that there were mermaids, and that mermaids
always had most beautiful hair, and that they always combed it with
pearly combs!

"Have you been swimming?" asked Mary Louise.

"Yes, a long swim," answered the little mermaid, and she gave a sudden
kick in the water with her little feet, or, should I say, with her
small fin-tail, which sent the spray flying.

"Oh, you're a mermaid!" exclaimed Mary Louise, surprised and delighted
at her unexpected discovery. "I saw your finny tail. Do you like
tails better than feet?"

"I never had feet," said the little mermaid, "so I can't say, but I
should think they'd be very nice to walk on."

"Yes, if you go to the mountains, as we did last summer," answered Mary
Louise, "but you don't have to climb hills in the ocean."

"Perhaps you don't know there are mountains in the sea," said the
little mermaid. "Of course, you have seen nothing but their tops.
What is that little rocky ledge over yonder, where the white lighthouse
stands, but the stony top of a hill rising from the bottom of the sea?
And what are those pretty green islands, with their clusters of trees
and grassy slopes, but the summits of hills lifted out of the water?"

"Oh!" said Mary Louise, with a gasp. "You do know geography, don't
you? Is it pretty, away down there under the waves?" she added
wistfully.

The mermaid smiled very sweetly as she answered, "Yes, it is. There are
many wonderful things to see, and many strange beautiful things to hear
under the sea! I will comb your hair with my magic comb," and she ran
the pearly comb gently through Mary Louise's hair.

"Over the sea the white ships sail,
Out through the mist and the rollicking gale,
While deep below the mermaids swim
With their finny tails so neat and trim.
So please, little magic comb, don't fail
To give Mary Louise a mermaid tail."

And the more she combed the longer grew the pretty curls, until, to the
astonishment of Mary Louise, she found her hair trailing down to her
very feet. The breeze suddenly blew it to one side, and there on the
sand, instead of her two little shoes, was a mermaid's tail, with a
flippy-floppy fin on the end!

"Come with me," said the mermaid, and without a moment's hesitation
Mary Louise followed her into the water an