in a melancholy cadence: ""for ever!" comes very lightly on childish lips like your own, but it is a terrible word when repeated again and again by the melancholy surges who have sung the same awful burden thousands of years! However, I will not tax your patience so far, but will pass away an hour for you in relating a few of the marvels of the ocean world from whence I came, now many years ago.'

I settled myself comfortably back in the armchair, and, supporting my elbows on one of its arms, held the beautiful shell closely to my ear so as not to lose a word, when it began as follows:

'I was not always the empty shell you now behold me, for I had a lively inhabitant, a species of fish, who was indeed my architect and builder; for from its peculiar secretions grew, little by little, the beautiful pearly structure which you now behold, and which it adapted to its growth, and added to year after year. We lived on a coral reef belonging to one of the Feejee Islands, in the South Seas, with hundreds of our brethren, for the seas there abound with our species. My owner generally crawled about the reef in search of food, such as crabs and whelks, presenting a curious spectacle, if you could but have seen him, or rather the myriads of his kindred, who all progress rather swiftly in the same way. They crawl along, head downwards-from whence the

name of their order is derived, cephalopod, or headfooted-by means of the fringed tentacles, which, to about seventy or eighty in number, surround their mouths, while the empty shell, buoyant from its vacant air-filled cavities, is turned upwards. They rarely come to the surface (for their food consists principally of the small crabs and shell-fish to be found on the reef), except in very calm weather, when they come up and float lazily about with the shell turned downwards, boat fashion, and their heads and feathery fingers waving above the water. When a storm arises, or danger seems near, they draw into their shell again and sink to the bottom; and not without reason, for the general enemy, man, is on the watch for them even there: the savage natives of these remote islands are always ready for them, esteeming them a most delicious dainty when roasted in their shells among hot ashes. They weave baskets of the fibres and stems of the native plants, in which they entrap many an unwary and unfortunate pearlmailed creature, whose shining armour is of no avail against this powerful foe.

'It was the ill fortune of my lodger, as I may term him, to become the prey of one of these cunning savages. Ensnared in the meshes of one of these terrible baskets, we were brought to land with a host of others, and saw the crystal depths of our beloved

We had hitherto

and native coral reef no more. been merely acquainted with the delicately plumed coral polyps, the gorgeously hued fishes, the gay sea-stars, the prickly but beautiful sea-urchins, and the exquisite anemone sea-flowers, that studded in such unseen splendour our retired ocean home. But we were now to see a little more of the world above us, or at least of the green island to which we were taken. It was no doubt very beautiful, for, girdled by the outward ring of coral reef, the inward waters surrounding the island were clear and comparatively quiet, the sloping land being well covered with the greenest-looking herbage, and studded thickly with the graceful foliage of the stately palm.

'However, I was not able to see very much of the beauties of the island at first, for our captor speedily laid us down on the shore, and set to work to kindle a fire and dig a pit in the loose, sandy earth, which he lined very dexterously with thin, flat stones. He kindled some dried grass and a few sticks by means of rubbing two pieces of hard wood so violently together, that the heat of the friction caused sparks to fall among the prepared materials. These were all then heaped into the pit, and the fire fed until the stone became quite red-hot. He then brushed out all the fire, and deposited my unfortunate companions in this fiery pit, to roast

them, covering them over with a flat stone. By some fortunate chance I had fallen out of the basket unobserved, and rolled down into a little tuft of herbage close to the beach, and thus escaped the fate of my companions. I beheld with horror the hungry savage take out the poor cooked creatures; and wrapping the hot shells up in palm leaves, to save his fingers from burning, he devoured them at his leisure, and evidently with great relish. The beautiful shells, blackened and burned by this barbarous process, had lost all their beauty, and the savage enlivened the close of his repast by throwing them into the far distant waves.'

'Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel upwards from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon e'er half her orb is filled;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark

Put out a tier of oars on either side;
Spread to the wafted breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.'

PELICAN ISLAND.

HAD rolled, as I told you,' continued the shell, 'into a kindly sheltering tuft

of herbage not far from the beach, and thus escaped the fiery death of the other nautili. The savage having satisfied his 'appetite with the roasted bodies of my companions (which, to judge from the eagerness with which he picked them out of their half calcined shells, must have been an