oyster became very much attached to her. Many times as the little invalid
rested her aching head affectionately on the instep of the old gum boot,
the old gum boot told her stories of the world beyond the sea: how she had
been born in a mighty forest, and how proud her folks were of their family
tree; how she had been taken from that forest and moulded into the shape
she now bore; how she had graced and served a foot in amphibious
capacities, until, at last, having seen many things and having travelled
much, she had been cast off and hurled into the sea to be the scorn of
every crab and the derision of every fish. These stories were all new to
the little oyster, and amazing, too; she knew only of the sea, having
lived therein all her life. She in turn told the old gum boot quaint
legends of the ocean,--the simple tales she had heard in her early home;
and there was a sweetness and a simplicity in these stories of the deep
that charmed the old gum boot, shrivelled and hardened and pessimistic
though she was.

Yet, in spite of it all,--the kindness, the care, the amusements, and the
devotion of her friends,--the little oyster remained always a sick and
fragile thing. But no one heard her complain, for she bore her suffering
patiently.

Not far from this beach where the ocean ended its long travels there was a
city, and in this city there dwelt with her parents a maiden of the name
of Margaret. From infancy she had been sickly, and although she had now
reached the years of early womanhood, she could not run or walk about as
others did, but she had to be wheeled hither and thither in a chair. This
was very sad; yet Margaret was so gentle and uncomplaining that from aught
she said you never would have thought her life was full of suffering.
Seeing her helplessness, the sympathetic things of Nature had compassion
and were very good to Margaret. The sunbeams stole across her pathway