She bore a strange affinity to
the rocks, and the sea-weed, and the pools, and the wide, wild ocean; and
Herbert would scarcely have been shocked to see her cast herself from the
cliff into the waves, which now dashed half-way up its height. By the time
he had got out of the hollow, she had vanished, and where she had gone he
could not conjecture. He half feared she had fallen over the precipice;
and several times that night, as the vapour of dreams gathered around him,
he started from his half-sleep in terror at seeing the little genius of
the storm fall from her rock-pedestal into the thundering waves as its
foot.
"Next day the wind continuing off the sea, with vapour and rain, the
children were compelled to remain within doors, and betake themselves to
books and playthings. But Herbert's chief resource lay in watching the sea
and the low grey sky, between which was no distinguishable horizon. The
wind still increased, and before the afternoon it blew a thorough storm,
wind and waves raging together on the rocky shore.
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