many little feet; but being without legs, you see, he couldn't be
expected to walk very fast The feet couldn't move one before the other
as yours do. they could only cling like little suckers, by which he
pulled himself slowly along from place to place. Nevertheless, he was
very proud of this accomplishment; and sometimes this pride led him to
an unjust contempt for his neighbors, as you will see by and by. He was
very particular about his eating; and besides his mouth, which lay in
the centre of his body, he had a little scarlet-colored sieve through
which he strained the water he drank. For he couldn't think of taking in
common seawater with every thing that might be floating in it,--that
would do for crabs and lobsters and other common people; but anybody who
wears such a lovely purple coat, and has brothers and sisters dressed in
crimson, feels a little above such living.

Now, one day this star-fish set out on a summer journey,--not to the
seaside where you and I went last year: of course not, for he was there
already. No; he thought he would go to the mountains. He could not go to
the Rocky Mountains, nor to the Catskill Mountains, nor the White
Mountains; for, with all his accomplishments, he had not yet learned to
live in any drier place than a pool among the rocks, or the very wettest
sand at low tide: so, if he travelled to the mountains, it must be to
the mountains of the sea.

Perhaps you didn't know that there are mountains in the sea. I have seen
them, however, and I think you have, too,--at least their tops, if
nothing more. What is that little rocky ledge, where the lighthouse
stands, but the stony top of a hill rising from the bottom of the sea?
And what are the pretty green islands, with their clusters of trees and
grassy slopes, but the summits of hills lifted out of the water?