's the matter, little girl?" said the sailor-man when he saw she
did not answer. "Are you afraid to go with me?"

"No," faltered Effie looking down. "But mother said I wasn't to go away
from the beach."

"Oh, Effie, Effie!" said a voice close to her. She started. Why! that
was the old man's voice; and when she looked up, there was no sailor-man
and no boat, and no one coming down the beach; but the same old man that
she saw last year, in the same grey clothes, with the same beautiful
long white hair, and his head shaking the same way as he bent down over
his old smooth stick--the same old man stood by her.

"Oh, Effie!" said he in his beautiful voice, "you have deceived me. You
weren't willing to do me a kindness; you cared too much about your own
happiness. And this is your birth-day. I have come for your Second Wish.
Remember, you have only one more wish after this. You must tell me this
one before the sun goes down. Look!"

Effie looked as he pointed, and the sun stood just on the water's edge;
and there were clouds above it and around it, but she thought it would
go down clear. She had her wish all ready, though. "I wish," said she,
"that I might go on to the great mountain off there," pointing back from
the sea, "and see the birds and the trees and the flowers."

When she had said it, the clouds gathered before the sun, so that it
could not be seen, and spread over the whole heavens, and she had hardly
time to run to the cottage, before the rain began to pour down in
torrents. Out at sea it was all black, except where the white caps of
foam lighted up the waters; the waves rushed roaring on the beach, and
the wind drove the sharp rain against the house. Effie put her face
against the window-glass and peered out into the darkness, but she could
see nothing of the old man.

"A bad ending to your birth-day, little Effie," said her father, coming
in just then, all dripping wet. "Never mind. A bad beginning makes a
good ending so your birth-day must have begun well, and this day is the
beginning of the year for you, so the year'll end well. So it's good all
round, ha! It's a bad night, wife! I hope nobody's out in the storm; it
came up sudden."

Effie thought of the old man and shivered to think how wet and cold he
would get. But she only thought of it a moment, and then began to wonder
how the wish would come to pass, and whether another little sea-green
man would come for her.

So she went to bed and to sleep