"They take care of themselves, and when there are too many in one place the old mermen send away some to another ocean; so we get on quietly, and there is room for all," said Goldfin, contentedly.
"And when you die, what happens?" asked Nelly, much interested in these queer creatures.
"Oh, we grow older and grayer and sit still in a corner till we turn to stone and help make these rocks. I've been told by Barnacle, the old one yonder, that people sometimes find marks of our hands or heads or fins in the stone, and are very much puzzled to know what kind of fish or animal made the prints; that is one of our jokes;" and both the mermaids laughed as if they enjoyed bewildering the wits of the people who were so much wiser than they.
"Well, I think it is much nicer to be buried under grass and flowers when our souls have flown away to heaven," said Nelly, beginning to be glad she was not a "truly" mermaid.
"What is heaven?" asked Silver-tail, stupidly.
"You would not understand if I tried to tell you. I can only say it is a lovely place where we go when we die, and the angels don't puzzle over us at all, but love us and are glad to see us come," said Nelly, soberly.
Both little maids stared at her with their green eyes as if they wanted to understand, but gave it up, and with a whisk of their shining tails darted away, calling to her,—
"Come and play with the crabs; it's great fun."
Nelly was rather afraid of crabs, they nipped her toes so when she went among them; but having no feet now, she felt braver, and was soon having a gay time chasing them over the rocks, and laughing to see them go scrambling sidewise into their holes. The green lobsters amused her very much by the queer way they hitched along, with their great claws ready to grasp and hold whatever they wanted. It was funny to see them wipe their bulging eyes with their feelers and roll them about on all sides. The hermit crabs in their shells were curious, and the great snails popping out their horns; the sea-spiders were very ugly, and she shook with fear when the horrible Octopus went by, with his eight long arms waving about like snakes and his hooked beak snapping.
"Show me something pretty," she begged; "I don't like these ugly things. Haven't you any flowers or birds or animals here to play with?"