the edge of the sea."

My first really intimate acquaintance with the sea-wrack, crabs,
sea-nettles, jelly-fish, and the thousand and one other small creatures
that inhabit the ocean, dates from this visit to the Long-Beach.

And during this same summer I fell in love for the first time--my
beloved was a little village girl. But here, so that the story may be
related more accurately, I will allow my sister, through the medium of
the old copy-book, to speak again--I merely copy:

"Dozens of the children (fishermen's boys and girls), tanned and brown
and with little legs all bare, followed Pierre, or audaciously hurried
before him, and from time to time turned and looked at him wonderingly
with their beautiful dark eyes. At that time a little gentleman was
a rare enough spectacle in that part of the country to be worth the
trouble of running after.

"Every day Pierre, accompanied by this crowd, would descend to the beach
by means of the little footpath scooped out of the sand. There he would
run and pick up the shells that, upon that coast, are so exquisitely
beautiful. They are yellow, pink, purple and many other bright colors,
and they have the most delicate and varied forms. Pierre admired them
greatly, and the little ones who always followed him would silently
offer him hands full.

"Veronica was the most attentive of all. She was about his own age,
perhaps a little younger, six or seven years of age. She had a sweet,
dreamy little face, a rather pale complexion and lovely gray eyes. She
was protected from the heat by a large white sunbonnet; a kichenote, as