"Indeed I have," said he. "I always think it such a grand thing that you landed magnates can't keep all your delights to yourself. I dare say I've been here oftener than you have during the last three months."
"That's very likely, seeing that it's my first visit this summer."
"And I've been here a dozen times. I suppose you'll think I'm a villanous trespasser when I tell you that I've bathed in that very house more than once."
"Then you've done more than I ever did; and yet we had it made thinking it would do for ladies. But the water looks so black."
"Ah! I like that, as long as it's a clear black."
"I like bathing where I can see the bright stones like jewels at the bottom. You can never do that in fresh water. It's only in some nook of the sea, where there is no sand, when the wind outside has died away, and when the tide is quiet and at its full. Then one can drop gently in and almost fancy that one belongs to the sea as the mermaids do. I wonder how the idea of mermaids first came?"
"Some one saw a crowd of young women bathing."
"But then how came they to have looking-glasses and fishes' tails?"
"The fishes' tails were taken as granted because they were in the sea, and the looking-glasses because they were women," said Rowan.
"And the one with as much reason as the other. By-the-by, Mr. Rowan, talking of women, and fishes' tails, and looking-glasses, and all other feminine attractions, when did you see Miss Ray last?"