One bright morning in August little Mary Louise put on her hat and went trudging across the meadow to the beach.
It was the first time she had been trusted out alone since the family had moved to the seashore for the summer; for Mary Louise was a little girl, nothing about her was large, except her round gray eyes.
There was a pale mist on the far-off sea, and up around the sun were white clouds edged with the hues of pinks and violets. The tide was coming in, and the waves, little at first, but growing larger every moment, were crowding up, along the sand and pebbles, laughing, winking and whispering, as they tumbled over each other, like thousands of children hurrying home from school.
Who was down there under the blue water, with the hoarse, hollow voice, urging and pushing them across the beach to her feet? And what was there beneath the sea, and beyond the sea, so deep, so broad and so dim, away off where the white ships, that looked smaller than seabirds, were gliding out and in?
But while Mary Louise stood still and wondered, there came a low rippling laugh to her ear.
A little distance down the beach a girl, somewhat older than herself, rested on the beach. She evidently was tired from swimming, for she lay half in the water and half on the warm sand, her face resting on her upturned palms, looking at Mary Louise with a smile, which seemed to say:"Why don't you come over and comb my hair?"Indeed, this must have been exactly what she meant, for she held out a pretty pearl comb until Mary Louise could resist no longer.
Little Mary Louise had never before seen such beautiful long hair. It spread like a scarf from the girl's shoulders down upon the sand.
Mary Louise had forgotten that there were mermaids, and that mermaids always had most beautiful hair, and that they always combed itwith pearly combs!
"Have you been swimming?" asked Mary Louise.
"Yes, a long swim," answered the little mermaid, and she gave a sudden kick in the water with her little feet, or, should I say, with her small fin-tail, which sent the spray flying.
"Oh, you're a mermaid!" exclaimed Mary Louise, surprised and delighted at her unexpected discovery. "I saw your finny tail. Do you like tails better than feet?""I never had feet," said the little mermaid, "so I can't say, but I should think they'd be very nice to walk on.""Yes, if you go to the mountains, as we did last summer," answered Mary Louise, "but you don't have to climb hills in the ocean.""Perhaps you don't know there are mountains in the sea," said the little mermaid. "Of course, you have seen nothing but their tops. What is that little rocky ledge over yonder, where the white lighthouse stands, but the stony top of a hill rising from the bottom of the sea? And what are those pretty green islands, with their clusters of trees and grassy slopes, but the summits of hills lifted out of the water?""Oh!" said Mary Louise, with a gasp. "You do know geography, don't you? Is it pretty, away down there under the waves?" she added wistfully.
