power of going away into the water; so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise turned her head about as natural as any Christian.
When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt tears-doubly salt, 110 doubt, from her--came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the cap, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his country-men a mighty tender heart of his own.
"Don't cry, my darling,” said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that.
Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly land, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.
“What's your name, my darling?” says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him ; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking to her. It's the
