hall all drown."

The seas came white aboard
And wetted her gown;
"Would I were back in Carthage
A-walking up and down!

That I were back in Carthage
Which is dry ground,
I would give my jewels
And a thousand pound."

Then round went the good ship,
And thrice she went round,
The third time she brast herself
With a down-derry-down!

Some cried misericordia,
And others did swoun;
But up there stood a guardsman
A naked man and brown--

"You are the Queen of Carthage
And gey young to drown;
But hold you to my girdle
That goes me around;
And swim with me to Saaron,
As I will be bound."

"Your girdle it is breaking
That goeth you around."
"Nay, hold you to the girdle
That is strong yet and sound;
My heart you felt a-breaking,
But here is dry ground."

With white sand and shingle
The shore did abound;
With white sand she covered him
And built him a mound.

With flotsam and with wreckage
The shore was all strown;
She built of it a cottage,
And there she sat down.

"Though this be not Africa,
Nor yet Carthage town,
Deo-gracey," said Zenobia,
"That I did not drown!"

"That's where the tune changes," interrupted Matthew Henry, clapping
his small sunburnt hands together.

"You know the song then?" asked Vashti, looking from one to the other.

All three nodded. "We know a verse or two," Annet answered. "Mother was
always singing it when she rocked Matthew Henry to sleep, and sometimes
we get her to sing as much as she can remember for a treat."

"But she can only remember five or six verses," said Linnet; "and her
voice is not beautiful like yours."

Annet and Matthew Henry protested. Their mother's was a beautiful
voice; one of the most beautiful in the world.

"But not beautiful like hers," Linnet persisted. "I mean that it's
quite different."

They admitted this--so much their loyalty allowed them. "And I like the
end of the song best," Linnet went on, "because it's cheerfuller. It
goes on 'At daybreak she dressed her....'"

But for a moment or two, though she felt the children's eyes fastened
on her expectantly, Vashti did not resume the song. Those same
expectant eyes were open windows through which she looked into the
past, as into a house tenanted by ghosts. Through Annet's, through
Linnet's,