"Next day, the storm having abated, and the sun shining out, they were
standing on the beach, near a fisherman, who like them was gazing
seawards, when the child went skimming past along the shore. Mrs. Netherby
asked the fisherman about her, and learned the secret of the sea's
motherhood. She had been washed ashore from the wreck of a vessel; and was
found on the beach, tied to a spar. All besides had perished. From the
fragment they judged it to have been a Dutch vessel. Some one had said in
her hearing--'Poor child! the sea is her mother;' and her imagination had
cherished the idea. A fisherman, who had no family, had taken her to his
house and loved her dearly. But he lost his wife shortly after; and a year
or two ago, the sea had taken him, the only father she knew. All, however,
were kind to her. She was welcome wherever she chose to go and share with
the family. But no one knew today where she would be to-morrow, where she
would have her next meal, or where she would sleep. She was wild,
impulsive, affectionate. The simple people of the village believed her to
be of foreign birth and high descent, while reverence for her lonely
conditions made them treat her with affection as well as deference; so
that the forsaken child, regarded as subject to no law, was as happy in
her freedom and confidence as any wild winged thing of the land or sea.
The summer loved her; the winter strengthened her. Her first baptism in
the salt waters had made her a free creature of the earth and skies; had
fortified her, Achilles-like, against all hardship, cold, and nakedness
to come; had delivered her from the bonds of habit and custom, and shown
in her what earth and air of themselves can do, to make the lowest, most
undeveloped life, a divine gift.

"The following morning, the sea was smooth and clear. So was the sky.
Looking down from their cottage, the sea appeared to Herbert to slope
steeply up to the horizon, so that the shore lay like a deep narrow valley