mother, and declaring that neither should her charms ever cross the
water,--that all their blessing would be changed to banning, and that
bane would burn the bearer, should the salt-sea spray again dash round
them. But when, in process of Nature, the Asian died,--having become
classic through her longevity, taking length of days for length of
stature,--then the rosary belonged to mamma's sister, who by-and-by sent
it, with a parcel of other things, to papa for me. So I should have had
it at all events, you see;--papa is such a tease I The other things were
mamma's wedding-veil, that point there, which once was her mother's, and
some pearls.

I was born upon the sea, in a calm, far out of sight of land, under
sweltering suns; so, you know, I'm a cosmopolite, and have a right to
all my fantasies. Not that they are fantasies at all; on the contrary,
they are parts of my nature, and I couldn't be what I am without them,
or have one and not have all. Some girls go picking and scraping odds
and ends of ideas together, and by the time they are thirty get quite a
bundle of whims and crotchets on their backs; but they are all at sixes
and sevens, uneven and knotty like fagots, and won't lie compactly,
don't belong to them, and anybody might surprise them out of them. But
for me, you see, mine are harmonious, in my veins; I was born with them.
Not that I was always what I am now. Oh, bless your heart! plums and
nectarines, and luscious things that ripen and develop all their
rare juices, were green once, and so was I. Awkward, tumble-about,
near-sighted, till I was twenty, a real raw-head-and-bloody-bones to all
society; then mamma, who was never well in our diving-bell atmosphere,
was ordered to the West Indies, and papa said it was what I needed, and
I went, too,--and oh, how sea-sick! Were you ever? You forget all about
who you are, and have a vague notion of being Universal Disease. I have
heard of a kind of myopy that is biliousness, and when I reached the