sentinel-cocks, whose crowing sounded to him more clear and musical than
that of any of the cocks at home. He jumped out of bed. It was a sunny
morning, and his soul felt like a flake of sunshine, as he looked out of
his window on the radiant sea, green and flashing, its clear surface here
and there torn by the wind into spots of opaque white. So happy did he
feel, that he might have been one who had slept through death and the
judgment, and had awaked, a child, still in the kingdom of God, under the
new heavens and upon the new earth.

"After breakfast, they all went down with their mother to the sea-shore.
As they went, the last of the boats which had gone out the night before,
were returning laden, like bees. The sea had been bountiful. Everything
shone with gladness. But as Herbert drew nearer, he felt a kind of dread
at the recklessness of the waves. On they hurried, assailed the rocks,
devoured the sands, cast themselves in wild abandonment on whatever
opposed them. He feared at first to go near, for they were unsympathizing,
caring not for his love or his joy, and would sweep him away like one of
those floating sea-weeds. 'If they are such in their play,' thought he,
'what must they be in their anger!' But ere long he was playing with the
sea as with a tame tiger, chasing the retreating waters till they rallied
and he, in his turn, had to flee from their pursuit. Wearied at length, he
left his brother and sister building castles of wet sand, and wandered
along the shore.

"Everywhere about lay shallow lakes of salt water, so shallow that they
were invisible, except when a puff of wind blew a thousand ripples into
the sun; whereupon they flashed as if a precipitous rain of stormy light
had rushed down upon them. Lifting his eyes from one of these films of
water, Herbert saw on the opposite side, stooping to pick up some treasure
of the sea, a little girl, apparently about nine years of age. When she