i is 
THE MERMAID’S TEA SERVICE. 
Nature reveals most wonderful secrets to 
those who love her. Undine, bending over 
her treasures with glowing face, uttered many 
an exclamation of surprise and delight as she 
discovered new friends, or had charming se- 
crets revealed to her from the lips of old. 
She amused herself by arranging upon her 
tray a score or more of shells, delicately tinted, 
fair and shining as the rarest china, and not 
very dissimilar in shape to many of the dainty 
dishes of the day. 
“Come, Cousin Ellen,” she exclaimed, “and 
see my mermaid’s tea service !” 
“Others than the Nereids have eaten and 
drank from beautiful vessels like these,” said 
her cousin. “This,” she continued taking a 
shell from the tray, “is a Pecten, or scallop. 
One variety of Pecten served as a drinking 
cup in early times, and when the ancient chief- 
tain, Ossian, with his ae cuests, ‘struck his 
