“When I am a man,” said Johnnie to himself, “and have a house or a great caravan, or a ship or something of my own, I shouldn’t wonder if I married Peggy.”
He proceeded to seek for more shrimps and dabs, or whatever he could find. He had a long trident, such as Neptune, the sea-god, is supposed to carry. He lowered this almost to the bottom of a pool, and whenever he noticed the sand stir, down went the three-pronged spear and up came a flat fish. He got several thus, and one wriggley-waggley conger eel.
When he looked up, lo! there was Peggy, standing on her boulder again, but how changed! She was Peggy still in face—she could be nothing sweeter—but her whole body down to the knees, with the exception of her shapely arms, was covered with a garment of seaweeds; strings of shells were around her neck, her arms, and ankles, and her hair was adorned with sea-mosses which matched its auburn beauty. Peggy possessed the gift of “getting up,” but never before had she done anything so perfect as this.
Johnnie wasn’t often taken back, but he was now; he merely opened his eyes and said, “Oh, Peggy!”
The little minx tripped lightly down and took his trident from the boy’s hands, then, holding it with the spear-points upwards, she stood on a rock in the sunlight and began to sing.
If there were any fairy mermaids in those pools, I am sure they looked and listened too.
“Do you like my new dress, Johnnie, boy?”
“Yes; and oh, Peggy, you must sing in it to-night. You look a perfect little nymph of the wave. And now we are going to breakfast, dear cousin.”
“What! In this dress of weeds?”
“Yes, and that trident and all. You won’t catch cold, will you?”