After breakfast was over they at once started for the beach. Sierra Nevada, their colored nurse, following them with small buckets, shovels, wraps, and cushions.
"Mother, this is the nicest place, and I love the Stevenses; but why are they sad around the eyes, and dressed in black, like you? Has their father gone to Paradise too?" asked Ethelwyn, as they walked along.
"Yes, dear. Besides, the young captain whom Dorothy was going to marry went away last year and, his ship was wrecked and he has never been heard from. So they fear he was drowned."
"O, mother, can this pretty sea do that? What was it they were saying about a tide?"
Their mother tried to explain all she knew about the tides, and when she had finished, Ethelwyn said:
"I think it would be easier to remember to call it tied, and then untied."
Dollie's poor mother is quite full of care,
As she who lived in a shoe,
For this child is tousled, this one undressed—
Mother has all she can do.
More dollies there are, than possible clothes,
Some of them must go to bed.
And some to be healed by mother with glue,
Lacking an arm or a head.
Then others, wearing the invalid's clothes,
Care not a fling or a jot
Nor know that to-morrow their own fate may be
The bed, or the mucilage pot.