r."

"Oh, all right. I sha'n't eat it though--not all at once."

"No," said Helen, "keep it till you're hungry. The grains go quite a
long way when you're hungry."

"I'll eat one a year," said the boy, "and then they'll go so far
they'll outlast me my lifetime."

"Yes," said Helen, "but the bread will be gone in forty minutes. And
then you'll be where you can get meat."

"You funny thing," said the boy, puzzled because she never smiled.

"Where can you get meat?" she asked.

"In a boat, fishing for rabbits."

But she took no notice of the rabbits. She said eagerly, "A boat? are
you going in a boat?"

"Yes."

"Are you a sailor?"

"You've hit it."

"You've seen the sea! you've been on the sea!--sailors do that..."

"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond
and come home for tea."

Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and watched
her over it.

"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck the
little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed like a
ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and after
some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. "Here you
are, child," he said, "and thank you again."

He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned
once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and
his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she
looked at what he had given her. It was a shell.

She had heard of shells, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet she
knew this was no English shell. It was as large as the top of a teacup,
but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, rippled waves
of sea-green and sea-blue, under a luster that was like golden
moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of
color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable
movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and
curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint
play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the
moonlit sea. When she turned the shell over she found that she could
not see its heart. The blue-green side of the shell curled under like a
smooth billow, and then broke into a world of caves, and caves within
caves, whose final secret she could not discover. But within and within
the color grew deeper and deeper, bottomless bl