The Sea Lady

eliberately planned intrusion upon her part. She never had cramp, she couldn't have cramp, and as for drowning, nobody was near drowning for a moment exce

nd assistance of that good-hearted lady (who as a matter of fact was a thing of yesterday, a me

fter a time, I gather, she gave way to bursts of cheerful confidence. "It is clear," says my cousin, "that the old ideas of the submarine life as a sort of perpetual game of 'who-hoop' through groves of coral, diversified by moonlight hair-combings on rocky strands, need very extensive modification." In this matter of literature, for example, they have practically all that we have, and unlimited leisure to read it in. Melville is very insistent upon and rather envious of that unlimited leisure. A picture of a mermaid swinging in a hammock of woven seaweed, with what bishops call a "latter-day" novel in one hand a

t. The sources are various and in some cases a little odd. Many books have been found in sunken ships. "Indeed!" said Melville. There is always a dropping and blowing overboard of novels and magazines from most passenger-carrying vessels-sometimes, but these are not as a rule valuable additions-a deliberate shying overboard. But sometimes books of an exceptional sort are thrown over when they are quite finished. (Melville

generally kn

it," said

, in the deep water of the English Channel; practically the whole of the Tauchnitz Library is there, thrown overboard at the last moment by conscientious or timid travellers returning from the continent, and there was for a time a similar source of supply of American reprints in

pers, are valued even more highly than novels, are looked for far more eagerly and perused with envious emotion. Indeed on that point my cousin got a sudden glimpse of one of the motives that had brought this daring young lady into the air. He made some sort of suggestion. "We should have

aid my cous

" said the

aid my cous

aid the Sea Lady very

lville. "Why!-you ca

ecisely it

light on an old topic. "And t

nd sailors and Low People about, one came out, one sat and brushed it in

biting her lip the while. My cousin made a sympathetic noise

, but also that dense collection of literary snacks and samples, that All-Literature Sausage which has been compressed under the weighty editing of Doctor Richard Garnett. It has long been notorious that even the greatest minds of the past were far too copious and confusing in their-as the word goes-lubrications. Doctor Garnett, it is alleged, has seized the gist and presented it so compactly that almost any business man now may take hold of it without hindrance to his more serious occ

t down until much later in the day. The captain was the first to arrive, said the Sea Lady, and it is a curious fact, due probably t

on latter-day novel and the newspaper that the Sea Lady derived her ideas of human life and sentiment and the inspiration of her visit. And if at times she seemed to underestimate the nobler tendencies of the human spirit, if at times she seemed disposed to treat Adeline G