MISS MIX.

BY CH--L--TTE BR--NTE.


CHAPTER I.


My earliest impressions are of a huge, misshapen rock, against
which the hoarse waves beat unceasingly. On this rock three
pelicans are standing in a defiant attitude. A dark sky lowers in
the background, while two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant eye
with extreme disfavor the floating corpse of a drowned woman in the
foreground. A few bracelets, coral necklaces, and other articles
of jewelry, scattered around loosely, complete this remarkable
picture.

It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way, symbolizes, to my
fancy, the character of a man. I have never been able to explain
exactly why. I think I must have seen the picture in some
illustrated volume, when a baby, or my mother may have dreamed it
before I was born.

As a child I was not handsome. When I consulted the triangular bit
of looking-glass which I always carried with me, it showed a pale,
sandy, and freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of seaweed
when the sun strikes it in deep water. My eyes were said to be
indistinctive; they were a faint, ashen gray; but above them rose--