there not be sea-toffee as
well? And every one can find sea-lemons (ready quartered too) if they
will look for them at low tide; and sea-grapes too sometimes, hanging in
bunches; and, if you will go to Nice, you will find the fish-market full
of sea-fruit, which they call "frutta di mare": though I suppose they
call them "fruits de mer" now, out of compliment to that most
successful, and therefore most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly
desirous of inheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their
neighbours' land-mark. And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the
place is called Nice, because there are so many nice things in the sea
there: at least, if it is not, it ought to be.

Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till his mouth
watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl's. For he hoped that his
turn would come at last; and so it did. For the lady called him up, and
held out her fingers with something in them, and popped it into his
mouth; and, lo and behold, it was a nasty cold hard pebble.

"You are a very cruel woman," said he, and began to whimper.

"And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones'
mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they had caught a good
dinner! As you did to them, so I must do to you."

"Who told you that?" said Tom.

"You did yourself, this very minute."

Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback indeed.

"Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong; and that
without knowing it themselves. So there is no use trying to hide
anything from me. Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put no more
pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other creatures'."

"I did not know there was any harm in it," said Tom.

"Then you know now. People continually say that to me: but I tell them,
if you don't know that fire burns, that is no reason that it should not
burn you; and if you don't know that dirt breeds fever, that is no
reason why the fevers should not kill you. The lobster did not know that
there was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; but it caught him
all the same."

"Dear me," thought Tom, "she knows everything!" And so she did, indeed.

"And so, if you do not know that things are wrong, that is no reason why
you should not be punished for them; though not as much, not as much, my
little man" (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), "as if you did
know."

"Well, yo