back a hundred yards and left room for the daintiest edging of white
sand, shining like coral, crumbled down from the pure granite--which at
this point had not been overflowed like the rest of the island of
Suliscanna by the black lava.

Such a place for play there was not anywhere--neither on Suliscanna nor
on any other of the outer Atlantic isles. Low down, by the surf's edge,
the wet sands of the Glistering Beaches were delicious for the bare feet
to run and be brave and cool upon. The sickle sweep of the bay cut off
the Western rollers, and it was almost always calm in there. Only the
sea-birds clashed and clanged overhead, and made the eye dizzy to watch
their twinkling gyrations.

Then on the greensward there was the smoothest turf, a band of it
only--not coarse grass with stalks far apart, as it is on most
sea-beaches; but smooth and short as though it had been cropped by a
thousand woolly generations. "Such a place!" they both cried. And Anna,
who had never been here before, clapped her hands in delight.

"This is like heaven!" she sighed, as the prow of the boat grated
refreshingly on the sand, and Simeon sprang over with a splash, standing
to his mid-thigh in the salt water to pull the boat ashore.

Then Simeon and Anna ran races on the smooth turf. They examined
carefully the heaped mounds of shells, mostly broken, for the "legs of
mutton" that meant to them love and long life and prosperity. They chose
out for luck also the smooth little rose-tinted valves, more exquisite
than the fairest lady's finger-nails.

Next they found the spring welling up from an over-flow mound which it
had built for itself in the ages it had run untended. Little throbbing
grains of sand dimpled in it, and the mound was green to the top; so
that Simeon and Anna could sit, one on one side and the other upon the
other, and with a farle of cake eat and drink, passing from hand to hand
alternate, talking all the time.

It was a divine meal.

"This is better than having to go to church!" said Anna.

Simeon stared at her. This was not the Sabbath or a Fast-day. What a
day, then, to be speaking about church-going! It was bad enough to have
to face the matter when it came.

"I wonder what we should do if the Great Auk were suddenly to fly out of
the rocks up there, and fall splash into the sea," he said, to change
the subject.

"The Great Auk does not fly," said positive Anna, who had been reading
up.

"What does it do, then?