st so, it is said, the sailors cannot look away from the fair,
wonderful creatures tossing their rich hair, beckoning wildly, singing
and singing with a sweetness that is not natural or earthly, until, what
with the beauty and luring, and voices of honey, the poor sailormen are
close against the rocks, and do not seem to know that they are charmed
or harmed when the waters close softly over them.

I do not know whether I have ever seen a mermaid or not. But when I took
that dangerous voyage up into the storm circle, I saw strange shapes
that I never saw before, and heard sounds that were new to my ear. Two
or three times I thought I saw streaming hair, and white faces seemed to
rise and ride atop of the foaming billows.

But when one is very much excited, will not imagination produce almost
any kind of an object that happens to come into the mind? Ah, I am
afraid so. Still, there are both Folks and fishes that believe in the
mermaids and their songs, and what am I that I should dare dispute them!

Yet--let me whisper--I have heard that Folks who do not know so very
much, will tell about "goblins," "spooks," and "catch-ums," and whenever
there is talk about the mermaids and the sirens, I think of those Folks
who believe in creatures that "never were."

But it would not do to talk in my watery home as if I had no belief in
mermaids, because, you see, as most fishes have never been with Folks,
and learned a thing or two from them, they do not know any better than
to believe in these sweet, dangerous creatures.

So, now, here came Dolphy, with flapping fins, wild eye, and his story
of a mermaid's cave. Then a party was made up to go and see the rare and
amazing place.

Well, it did look as if some creatures of surprising taste and skill had
brought together a collection of shells such as are never seen above the
surface of the sea, and formed, indeed, a cave fit for a mermaid's home.

I know little about time, but it must have been days and nights I stayed
in the enchanting place, roving hither and thither, rubbing my fins
against the soft, smooth shells, and half wondering how they really came
to be grouped together in such shining rows.

And the colors! And the shapes! Some were well-opened on the inside, and
looked as if entirely covered with pink enamel. They were of clear,
ivory white, pinkish white, pale rose, deep rose, pale yellow, or straw
color, orange yellow, blue and green mixed in glossy sheen, shades of