shaping the outside of the intended canoe. This last indeed is a dangerous tool, and should never be trusted without circumspection to young or to old hands, unless they be skilful and careful. Harry, both careful and skilful, for he had been practised in the use of this tool, under his father's eye at home, was trusted with it now; but upon special condition, that Lucy was never to touch it. A condition to which Lucy, having just fear of her shins, as well as proper habits of obedience, willingly submitted.

As the hollowing out this canoe, chip by chip, was likely to be a tedious operation, Lucy left Harry and his adze to themselves, and went to her own amusements, upon the shelly shore. As she was creeping along, searching for shells, an old woman crossed her path, carrying on her back a huge basket full of sea weed. The woman's foot hit against some shingles on the beach; she stumbled, and let fall her basket, the contents of which were overturned on the sands. Lucy went to fill it

again for her, and now seeing that she was the gate-keeper, who lived at the entrance of the wood, took hold of one of the handles of the basket, and helped her to carry it home.

Dame Peyton, for that was the old woman's name, thanked her, and accepted her offer, more, perhaps, for the pleasure of talking to the young lady on the way, than for any use in her assistance. The load, though bulky, was very light. The basket was chiefly filled with the little black blad ders of a particular kind of sea weed. These, when dried and oiled, she strung, and sent by her daughter to the shops in a town hard by, where they were made into necklaces and bracelets, for whosoever, gentle or simple, might chance to have a liking for such. The dame loved talking, and she pursued her discourse. "You were a-looking for shells, miss, when I came by, I suppose; and if I may be so bold, I can show you more in an hour than you would find in a week without me; for I know where the beds of them lie, and where the sea urchins

bide, miss, if ever you heard of them urchins."

Lucy was eager to find a sea urchin, and had been searching for one in vain. As soon as they reached the cottage at the gate where she lived, Dame Peyton pointed to a shelf in her corner cupboard, on which were several shells, which had been left there by her sailor son, who had picked up some of them from the neighbouring sands, and some from foreign parts.

The shell of the sea urchin, which Lucy first examined, was about the size of an orange, the shape of a turnip, and divided into compartments like a melon; the colour was lilac, but looking as if sprinkled thickly with little, white, frosted sugar-plums in some of its quarters; and in others, perforated with a multitude of holes, nearly as small as pin holes. The shell was as light as an empty egg shell. Through each of the little holes, the urchin when alive puts out its prickles or spines, which stand in all directions, round the creature's shell, like the

prickles of a hedgehog. Lucy, who had read the description of it, knew that these serve the sea urchin for legs, with which, at the bottom of the sea, it can walk, as it is said, in any direction, sometimes with its mouth upwards, sometimes with its mouth downwards, sometimes rolling along sideways, like a wheel. There was an opening at the upper part of the shell, which served for its mouth, and another opposite to it, through which the creature can at pleasure push out, or draw in what resemble the horns of snails. These, which were formerly supposed to have been its legs, the urchin uses only to feel about with, when it walks, as a blind man uses a staff to touch and try every thing that lies in his

way.

Lucy, who knew all this from her books, was eager to see the fish alive, with all its spines about it. But Dame Peyton's dinner was ready, boiling over in her pot; and though the good-natured old woman would have left it to go that instant to show Lucy the haunt of the urchins, yet Lucy would

not let her. She waited till evening, and then Harry accompanied her, though rather unwilling to lay by his adze, and leave his canoe.

As he went with Lucy towards the appointed place, he objected to her wonderful account of the urchin's mode of walking on the spines. He said, that as these creatures were in the habit of walking only at the bottom of the sea, few people, only those who had gone down in a diving bell, could have observed them walking.

"You shall see, you shall see them yourself, Harry!" said Lucy.

She recollected what she had read, that Reaumur had first seen an urchin walking at the bottom of a shallow pan, full of sea water, and, at her request, Dame Peyton had provided one of her shallow milk pans to show the experiment. They found her waiting for them when they reached Urchinstown. She took out one from a number of these fish, which had congregated together, and put the apparently inanimate ball into the pan full of water. Presently