"Little girl," said he, "where does Simon Gilder live?"
"In that house, sir," pointing to the red cottage. "He is my father."
"So you're his little girl, are you? Is your father in the house?"
"No, sir, he is in the patch in the woods back there, hoeing potatoes."
"Will you go with me and show me where it is?" Effie looked along the beach and saw the old man, as she thought, slowly coming toward them; "Oh, dear!" thought she, "if the old man should come while I am gone!"
"What's the matter, little girl?" said the sailor-man when he saw she did not answer. "Are you afraid to go with me?"
"No," faltered Effie looking down. "But mother said I wasn't to go away from the beach."
"Oh, Effie, Effie!" said a voice close to her. She started. Why! that was the old man's voice; and when she looked up, there was no sailor-man and no boat, and no one coming down the beach; but the same old man that she saw last year, in the same grey clothes, with the same beautiful long white hair, and his head shaking the same way as he bent down over his old smooth stick—the same old man stood by her.
"Oh, Effie!" said he in his beautiful voice, "you have deceived me. You weren't willing to do me a kindness; you cared too much about your own happiness. And this is your birth-day. I have come for your Second Wish. Remember, you have only one more wish after this. You must tell me this one before the sun goes down. Look!"
Effie looked as he pointed, and the sun stood just on the water's edge; and there were clouds above it and around it, but she thought it would go down clear. She had her wish all ready, though. "I wish," said she, "that I might go on to the great mountain off there," pointing back from the sea, "and see the birds and the trees and the flowers."