She were all the while combing her beautiful hair, and beckoning to them, while with the other hand she held a looking-glass." "How many hands had she?" asked Job. "Two, to be sure, just like any other woman," answered Will, indignantly. "Oh! I thought you said she beckoned with one hand, and combed her hair with another, and held a looking-glass with a third," said Job, with provoking quietness. "No! I didn't I at least, if I did, I meant she did one thing after another, as any one but" (here he mumbled a word or two) "could understand. Well, Mary," turning very decidedly towards her, "when she saw them coming near, whether it were she grew frightened at their fowling-pieces, as they had on board for a bit o' shooting on the island, or whether it were she were just a fickle jade as did not rightly know her own mind (which, seeing one half of her was woman, I think myself was most probable), but when they were only about two oars length from the rock where she sat, down she plopped into the water, leaving nothing but her hinder end of a fish tail sticking up for a minute, and then that disappeared too." "And did they never see her again?" asked Mary. "Never so plain; the man who had the second watch one night declared he saw her swimming round the ship, and holding up her glass for him to look in; and then he saw the little cottage near Aber in Wales (where his wife lived) as plain as ever he saw it in life, and his wife standing outside, shading her eyes as if she were looking for him. But Jack Harris gave him no credit, for he said he were always a bit of a romancer, and beside that, were a home-sick, down-hearted chap." "I wish they had caught her," said Mary, musing. "They got one thing as belonged to her," replied Will, "and that I've often seen with my own eyes, and I reckon it's a sure proof of the truth of their story, for them that wants proof." "What was it?" asked Margaret, almost anxious her grandfather should be convinced. "Why, in her hurry she left her comb on the rock, and one o' the men spied it; so they thought that were better than nothing. and they rowed there and took it, and Jack Harris had it on board the John Cropper, and I saw him comb his hair with it every Sunday morning." "What was it like?" asked Mary, eagerly; her imagination running on coral combs, studded with pearls. "Why, if it had not had such a strange yarn belonging to it, you'd never ha' noticed it from any other small-tooth comb." "I should rather think not," sneered Job Legh. The sailor bit his lips to keep down his. anger against an old man. Margaret felt very uneasy, knowing her grandfather so well, and not daring to guess what caustic remark might come next to irritate the young sailor guest. Mary, however, was too much interested by the wonders of the deep to perceive the incredulity with which Job Legh received Wilson's account of the mermaid, and when he left off, half offended, and very much inclined not to open his lips again through the evening, she eagerly said, "Oh, do tell us something more of what you hear and see on board ship.
