Page:Monthly scrap book, for April.pdf/20

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THE MONTHLY

had only the sense to take proper care of what he had got. One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left the wife, minding the children at home after him, and thinking she bad plenty to do without disturbing his fishing tackle.

Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the house, and chancing to pull down a fishing net, what should she find behind it in a hole in the wall, but her own cap. She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and she felt a longing, to go back to them. She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart to lose her. "But," says she," he won't lose me entirely, for I'll come back to him again, and who can blame me for going to see my father and my mother after being so long away from them?"

She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She Kissed it gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her eye and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her brother, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The Merrow then went down to the strand.-The seal was lying calm and smooth, just heaving and glittering m the sun, and she thought she heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her