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THE SEA LADY



would seem the natural earnestness of her disposition overcame her proper attitude of ladylike superficiality and she began to ask questions. There can be no doubt that the Sea Lady was evasive, and Miss Glendower, perceiving that she had been a trifle urgent, tried to cover her error by expressing a general impression.

"I can't see it," she said, with a gesture that asked for sympathy. "One wants to see it, one wants to be it. One needs to be born a mer-child."

"A mer-child?" asked the Sea Lady.

"Yes— Don't you call your little ones——?"

"What little ones?" asked the Sea Lady.

She regarded them for a moment with a frank wonder, the undying wonder of the Immortals at that perpetual decay and death and replacement which is the gist of human life. Then at the expression of

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