which the water had left behind it on the sand, slowly breaking and passing
out of sight. Why there should be foam-bubbles there then, and not always,
I do not know. But there they were--and such colours! deep rose and grassy
green and ultramarine blue; and, above all, one dark, yet brilliant and
intensely-burnished, metallic gold. All of them were of a solid-looking
burnished colour, like opaque body-colour laid on behind translucent
crystal. Those little ocean bubbles were well worth turning to see; and so
I said to Wynnie. But, as we gazed, they went on vanishing, one by one.
Every moment a heavenly glory of hue burst, and was nowhere.

We walked away again towards the rest of our party.

"Don't you think those bubbles more beautiful than any precious stones you
ever saw, papa?"

"Yes, my love, I think they are, except it be the opal. In the opal, God
seems to have fixed the evanescent and made the vanishing eternal."

"And flowers are more beautiful things than jewels?' she said
interrogatively.

"Many--perhaps most flowers are," I granted. "And did you ever see such
curves and delicate textures anywhere else as in the clouds, papa?"

"I think not--in the cirrhous clouds at least--the frozen ones. But what
are you putting me to my catechism for in this way, my child?"

"O, papa, I could go on a long time with that catechism; but I will end
with one question more, which you will perhaps find a little harder to
answer. Only I daresay you have had an answer ready for years lest one of