ushed out on the tide, when both children laughed
gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing on the amber surface,
and watching the rings and sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles
below. Little Moses was glorious,--his adventures had begun,--and with a
fairy-princess in his boat, he was going to stretch away to some of the
islands of dreamland. He persuaded Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet,
which he placed for a pennon on a stick at the end of the boat, while he
made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of the boat and
then on the other,--spattering the water in diamond showers, to the
infinite amusement of the little maiden.

Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still outward, and as they
went farther and farther from shore, the more glorious felt the boy. He
had got Mara all to himself, and was going away with her from all grown
people, who wouldn't let children do as they pleased,--who made them sit
still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, and kept so many things
which they must not touch, or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls
came flying toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in
welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were coming at once
to take passage with them for fairy-land. But the birds only dived and
shifted and veered, turning their silvery sides toward the sun, and
careering in circles round the children. A brisk little breeze, that
came hurrying down from the land, seemed disposed to favor their
unsubstantial enterprise,--for your winds, being a fanciful, uncertain
tribe of people, are always for falling in with anything that is
contrary to common sense. So the wind trolled them merrily along,
nothing doubting that there might be time, if they hurried, to land
their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in
the sunset, where they could pick up shells,--blue and pink and
purple,--enough to make them rich for life. The children were all
excitement at the rapidity with which their little bark danced and
rocked, as it floated outward to the broad, open ocean; at the blue,
freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating,
white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going rapidly
somewhere, to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness
of the brightest hours of grown people more than this?

"Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, "seems to me I haven't heard nothin'
o' them childr