Once there was a little star-fish, and he had five fingers and five eyes, one at the end of each finger,--so that he might be said to have at least one power at his fingers' ends. And he had I can't tell you how many little feet; but being without legs, you see, he couldn't be expected to walk very fast The feet couldn't move one before the other as yours do. they could only cling like little suckers, by which he pulled himself slowly along from place to place. Nevertheless, he was very proud of this accomplishment; and sometimes this pride led him to an unjust contempt for his neighbors, as you will see by and by. He was very particular about his eating; and besides his mouth, which lay in the centre of his body, he had a little scarlet-colored sieve through which he strained the water he drank. For he couldn't think of taking in common seawater with every thing that might be floating in it,--that would do for crabs and lobsters and other common people; but anybody who wears such a lovely purple coat, and has brothers and sisters dressed in crimson, feels a little above such living. Now, one day this star-fish set out on a summer journey,--not to the seaside where you and I went last year: of course not, for he was there already. No; he thought he would go to the mountains. He could not go to the Rocky Mountains, nor to the Catskill Mountains, nor the White Mountains; for, with all his accomplishments, he had not yet learned to live in any drier place than a pool among the rocks, or the very wettest sand at low tide: so, if he travelled to the mountains, it must be to the mountains of the sea. Perhaps you didn't know that there are mountains in the sea. I have seen them, however, and I think you have, too,--at least their tops, if nothing more. What is that little rocky ledge, where the lighthouse stands, but the stony top of a hill rising from the bottom of the sea? And what are the pretty green islands, with their clusters of trees and grassy slopes, but the summits of hills lifted out of the water? In many parts of the sea, where the water is deep, are hills and even high mountains, whose tops do not reach the surface; and we should not know where they are, were it not that the sailors, in measuring the depth of the sea, sometimes sail right over these mountain-tops, and touch them with their sounding-lines.