we stand safe, though not dreadless. She comprehends our unmoved gaze; she feels herself powerless: anger crosses her front; she cannot charm, but she will appal us: she rises high, and glides all revealed, on the dark wave-ridge. Temptress-terror! monstrous likeness of ourselves! Are you not glad, Caroline, when at last, and with a wild shriek, she dives?"
"But, Shirley, she is not like us: we are neither temptresses, nor terrors, nor monsters."
"Some of our kind, it is said, are all three. There are men who ascribe to 'woman,' in general, such attributes."
"My dears," here interrupted Mrs. Pryor, "does it not strike you that your conversation for the last ten minutes has been rather fanciful?"
"But there is no harm in our fancies: is there, ma'am?"
"We are aware that mermaids do not exist: why speak of them as if they did? How can you find interest in speaking of a nonentity?"
"I don't know," said Shirley.
"My dear, I think there is an arrival. I heard a step in the lane, while you were talking; and is not that the garden-gate which creaks?"
Shirley stepped to the window.
"Yes, there is some one," said she, turning quietly away: and, as she resumed her seat, a sensitive flush animated her face, while a trembling ray at once kindled and softened her eye. She raised
