It was full of brilliant anemones, green and pink and orange, open wide and holding up hundreds of painted arms. In one corner was a fairy forest of zoophytes, with a sea-snail trying earnestly to force a passage through.

Suddenly, behind a little clump of sea­weed, there was a flash of prismatic colour, and silken ripples passed over the surface of the pool. He lay still, watching. Presently a tiny fish, some two inches long, slipped out through the sea-weed and began to swim round and round the pool, glittering in pink and silver. He plunged his hand into the water with a swift, dexterous movement, and caught the fish.

He lifted the little creature and held it in the sunshine, watching the flashing colours pass and change along its sides as it plunged and struggled in his hand. Then suddenly he saw how beautiful it was, and put it gently back into the water, and let it dart away. One had no right to interfere with a thing whose body was made all of rainbows.

His hand was still lying in the water, and he glanced down at it carelessly. There were no rainbows on it; but it was beautiful; more beautiful even than the fish. He opened and shut it under the water; and watched the working of the muscles, and the strong, smooth curve of the wrist. Yes, it was beautiful, and it was a part of him.

That afternoon was again a half-holiday. Billy Greggs had suggested that they should go fishing, as Saturday's expedition had not come off; but Jack refused; he wanted to be quite alone, and clamber on the rocks and look down through deep fissures at the ebbing tide.

Starting off after early dinner, with a pocketful of cherries and a drag-net for deep rock pools, he came upon Molly sitting alone in the garden with her head buried in the big lavender bush.