"Yes, they have been away more than half an hour, all my children except this one"—a small boy who looked as if he wished he had gone too. "They would go, though I warned them they would have to wade. And there they are, just going into the cave. One, two, three, four, five, six," counting the black specks that were seen moving on, or rather in, the water. "Oh dear, they've all gone in! I wish they were safe out again."
MULLION COVE, CORNWALL.
Nevertheless, in the midst of her distress, the benevolent lady stopped to give me a helping hand into the near cave, a long, dark passage, with light at either end. My girls had already safely threaded it and come triumphantly out at the other side. But what with the darkness and the uncertain footing over what felt like beds of damp seaweed, with occasional stones, through which one had to grope every inch of one's way, my heart rather misgave me, until I was cheered by the apparition of the faithful Charles.
"Don't go back, ma'am, you'll be so sorry afterwards. I'll strike a light and help you. Slow and steady, you'll come to no harm. And it's beautiful when you get out at the other end."
So it was. The most exquisite little nook; where you could have imagined a mermaid came daily to comb her hair; one can easily believe in mermaids or anything else in Cornwall. What a charming dressing-room she would have, shut in on three sides by those great walls of serpentine, and in front the glittering sea, rolling in upon a floor of the loveliest silver sand.
But the only mermaid there was an artist's wife, standing beside her husband's easel, at which he was painting away so earnestly that he scarcely noticed us. Very picturesque he looked, and she too, in her rough serge dress, with her pretty bare feet and ankles, the shoes and stockings lying in a corner as if they had not been worn for hours. Why should they be? they were quite unnecessary on those soft sands, and their owner stood and talked with me as composedly as if it were the height of the fashion to go barefoot. And far more than anything concerning herself, she seemed interested in my evident interest in the picture, which promised to be a remarkably good one, and which, if I see it on the R. A. walls next year will furnish my only clue to the identity of the couple, or theirs to mine.
But the tide was fast advancing; they began to take down the easel, and I remembered that the narrow winding cave was our only way out from this rock-inclosed fairy paradise to the prosaic beach.