This was the last curiosity picked up to-day; but before they left the shore, Mr. Miller went to a cave, in which he recollected to have seen, a long time before, some plants of sea-fern growing on the roof. They were too high to be reached; but as he was a great admirer of ferns, and this kind grew only on the sea-shore, he did not like to miss a chance of seeing them again. To his great joy, the late storm, which had done so much damage to the shipping, had washed away one of the sides of the cave, and a large mass of stone had fallen just beneath the very place where the ferns grew. He mounted on this, and with the help of a knife, loosened some small stones around the roots of the ferns, and so took out some fine plants, roots and all. What was done with these you shall hear by and by. The next day was rainy, but on the day following the sun shone brightly, and there was every prospect of some fine weather. “The tide does not suit well,” said Mr. Miller, “but as we may not have a chance of another day’s sunshine, I will hire a carriage, and we will go to a beautiful part of the coast, which is some miles distant, where you will be able to pick up shells, and have a much wider view of the sea than that which we saw the day before yesterday.” Accordingly, a basket of provisions was packed up, and the carriage was very soon rolling merrily along. On the way, Henry asked his papa what he meant by saying that “the tide did not suit.” Mr. Miller explained to him that the water of the sea was not stagnant like that of a pond or a lake, nor did it always run one way like that of a river, but flowed in one direction for a little more than six hours, and in another during about the same time. “This motion of the water,” he said, “is called a tide. When the water is flowing towards the shore, the tide is said to be ‘coming in.’ All this time it is rising on the beach, and when it ceases to come in, we say that ‘it is high water.’ Soon after high water it begins to go out again, or ebb, and when it ceases to ebb we call it ‘low water.’ Now at the place where we are going, the shore is not made up of little pebbly beaches separated from each other by rocks jutting out, but long flat sands stretch for several miles. They are very pleasant to walk on when the tide is out, but it will be high water to-day just at the time when we reach the coast, so that I am afraid we shall not be able to have a very long walk on the sands, unless we wait some time. Never mind! we shall at least have a glorious view of the sea.” It was past twelve o’clock, when, after mounting a steep hill, the driver was told to stop, and to be in waiting at the same place exactly at four.