'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
raised herself and saw Herbert, she moved slowly away with a quiet grace,
that strangely contrasted with her tattered garments. She was ragged like
the sea-shore, or the bunch of dripping sea-weed that she carried in her
hand; she was bare from foot to knee, and passed over the wet sand with a
gleam; the wind had been at more trouble with her hair than any loving
hand; it was black, lusterless, and tangled.
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