''Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning,' said Dick, taking the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean, which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. 'Well, to be sure,' continued he, after a pause, ''tis mighty lonesome to be talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul to answer one--nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune,' said Dick, with a melancholy smile, 'to have the woman, it would not be this way with me! and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing-line without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete. Is it not so?' said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon the strand, which, though it could not speak, stood up as firm and looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did. But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that rock, a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it appeared, in the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage. Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow,[5] although he had never seen one before, for he spied the _cohuleen driuth_, or little enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying upon the strand near her; and he had heard that, if once he could possess himself of the cap she would lose the power of going away into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian. [Footnote 5: Sea fairy.] When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt tears--doubly salt, no doubt, from her--came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the _cohuleen driuth_, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, with her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of his own. 'Don't cry, my darling,' said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that. Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.