“My dear Agnes,” said her mother in a serious tone, “I have several times observed in you a tendency to look with contempt upon persons and things that you consider beneath you. It is true that you have many advantages which this ferryman has not. Fortunately for you, your parents are rich enough to allow you teachers to instruct you, servants to wait upon you, and a variety of comforts and indulgences which this ferryman can neither enjoy himself, nor give to his children. But these are merely accidental advantages. Circumstances might arise which would reduce you in a moment to a greater degree of poverty than this man, as, in fact, if we were obliged to live by the labour of our hands, he would be far superior to us from his activity and vigour. He is, though an old man, evidently in the enjoyment of robust health and great strength; and I am quite sure if your papa and I were obliged to row a ferry-boat for our support, we could neither of us do it half so well as he does.” “Oh! but mamma,” said Agnes, “there is no danger of our being reduced to poverty, is there?” “Not that I am aware of,” said Mrs. Merton; “but it is impossible to say what may happen. As your papa is not in trade he is not liable to those sudden and violent changes which frequently affect the commercial part of the community; but still many things may happen that would occasion a severe reverse. You know in the time of the French Revolution, many persons of a much higher rank than ours were reduced to the greatest distress, and even Louis Philippe, the present King of the French, was obliged to teach in a school for his support.” They had now reached a part of the beach where the pebbles were very rough, and as Agnes was much interested in what Mrs. Merton was saying, she did not pay proper attention to where she was going, and at this moment she stumbled over a piece of wood. This obliged her to look more carefully at her feet, and as the road was now become very rough, Mrs. Merton thought it better not to proceed any farther along the beach, but to return to the terrace, where the road was smooth. They did so, and had not walked far, when they saw a skate that had just been caught, lying on the beach, panting, and opening and shutting its mouth, which was in the middle of its body on the under side. Agnes shuddered as she looked at it. “I wish they would throw it back into the water, mamma,” said she. “We can hardly expect that,” returned her mother; “but I wish the fishermen in this country would stab their fish as soon as they have caught them, as I have heard fishermen do in the east. The skate is a kind of ray, and belongs to the same genus as the Torpedo. The thornback, or maid, belongs also to this genus. Do you remember the little things, that looked like little leather purses, that we used to find among the sea-weed at Brighton?” “Oh yes! the fishermen called them skate barrows; but you told me they were the eggs of the skate.”