ed, but because he wished to confide as far as he
might, he said outwardly: "I shouldn't have liked to shoot at it; its
face looked so awfully human, you know."

"Yes," assented the elder, who had a merciful heart "it's wonderful what
a look an animal has in its eyes sometimes." He was slowly shuffling
round to the next door with his keys. "Well, I'm sure, my lad, I don't
know what it could ha' been, unless 'twas some sort of a porpoise."

"We should be quite certain to know if there was any woman paying a
visit hereabout, shouldn't we? A woman couldn't possibly swim across the
bay."

"Woman!" The old man turned upon him sternly. "I thought you said it was
a fish."

"I said she _swam_ like a fish. She might have been a woman dressed in
a fish-skin, perhaps; but there isn't any woman here that could possibly
be acting like that--and old Morrison told me the same thing was about
the shore the summer before he died."

His father still looked at him sharply. "Well, the question is, whether
the thing you saw was a woman or a fish, for you must have seen it
pretty clear, and they aren't alike, as far as I know."

Caius receded from the glow of confidence. "It lay pretty much under the
water, and wasn't still long at a time."

The old man looked relieved, and in his relief began to joke. "I was
thinking you must have lost your wits, and thought you'd seen a
mermaid," he chuckled.

"I'd think it was a mermaid in a minute"--boldly--"if there were such
things."

Caius felt relieved when he had said this, but the old man had no very
distinct idea in his mind attached to the mythical word, so he let go
the thought easily.

"Was it a dog swimming?"

"No," said Caius, "it wasn't a dog."

"Well, I give it up. Next time you see it, you'd better come and fetch
the gun, and then you can take it to the musee up at your college, and
have it stuffed and put in a case, with a ticket to say you presented
it. That's all the use strange fish are that I know of."

When Caius reflected on this conversation, he knew that he had been a
hypocrite.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SEA-MAID'S MUSIC.

At dawn Caius was upon the shore again, but he saw nothing but a red
sunrise and a gray sea, merging into the blue and green and gold of the
ordinary day. He got back to breakfast without the fact of his matutinal
walk being known to the family.

He managed also in the afternoon to loiter for half an hour on the same
bit of shore at the s