chairs, writing-tables, and bureaus. Two windows in each room looked upon the blue ocean as it lay before them in its beauty, "Heaving and sinking in the sunny gleam." CHAPTER III. LIFE BY THE SOUNDING SEA. Fair blows the wind-the vessel drives along, THEY arrived just in time for dinner. After they had dined, their trunks were to be unpacked, and their books and clothes arranged. Carrie, who was order itself, could not have enjoyed a walk upon the beach until all these matters were settled. She persuaded Linda that business was before pleasure; and the two girls set resolutely to work. In an hour everything was in order, and they were all ready for a stroll. They went down to a little summer-house upon the edge of the bluff, and saw wave after wave chase each other to the beach, and then retreat to be lost again in the mighty mass. The atmosphere was of a delicious temperature, and a quiet peace filled the minds of the elder ones. The girls gayly pursued their way upon the beach, picking up shells as they walked.* They found the shell of the sea-snail bright and transparent, and mussel-shells, lined with beautifully colored mother of pearl. Quantities of scollop-shells were gathered, and wonder expressed at the perfectly regular manner in which they were fluted. "One of my books," remarked Linda, as she placed the glossy shells she had picked up in her basket, "says 'everything appears to most advantage in its native element; and that shells are never so beautiful as on See Frontispiece. the sand where the Almighty has strewn them' but I think they are quite as interesting in the cabinet as on the sea-shore." Yes," answered Carrie, "because they can be examined without injury, and their colors are unfading." "Certainly," said Linda, "quite unlike the wild flowers which droop in your hand almost as soon as you gather them. They never look as well anywhere as among the moss and withered leaves in the shady woods; and yet," she added, "what a joy the first gathered arbutus and houstonia used to give us in M—! It was a promise of greater pleasures, a forerunner of so much beauty and loveliness;" and Linda's thoughts, as she thus spoke, in a moment flew from the sea-shore to the New-England village in which her earliest breath was drawn, and where her infant years had been spent. She was recalled from her reverie by Carrie's exclamation of "Look, Linda, how beautifully the sunlight strikes the sail of that little boat!" She saw a graceful little craft at a distance; yet not so far away but that she could perceive how it danced, and courtesied, and bowed itself to the swelling waves; and how its white sail glistened and shone like molten silver in the radiant sunbeam. While the girls thus conversed, the older ladies sat quietly in the summer-house. Fortunately for them, the place was not crowded with company, as it is apt to be later in the season. As they looked at the ocean lying in its calm beauty, with its distant line appearing to |