Grief, however, is not healthful, and we may indulge in it even to a sinful extent.
But the songs sung to-night by Antonio were, though not exactly sad, plaintive, sweet, and tender, and found their way straight to the hearts of his listeners. And when he had finished, Sister Leona, though she had tears in her eyes, thanked him most fervidly.
After he had laid down his instrument, Teenie crept up close to his knee and demanded a story.
And it had to be a fairy one, too.
Antonio told her one with a mermaid in it, a most beautiful mermaid, who dwelt far away in a coralline cave, deep down in the sea’s dark bottom. She had little baby mermaids too, and though the sea itself was dark, her cave was lighted up with diamonds and rubies, and studded with pearls, quite a fairy-queen’s palace.
“And now, dearie,” he said at last, “off you go to your hammock, say your prayers, and dream about all the pretty things I have tried to describe to you.”
. . . . . .
The men were at work next day soon after sunrise. Indeed, all hands were piped to breakfast at a little past five o’clock.
It was a long and toilsome day’s work, and at the end of it they found they had only done four miles.
But at this rate they would succeed at last, and probably in ten days’ time be afloat on the blue sea once more.