44 THE HALL OF SHELLS. 
charming stories, too, about the sea,” ventured 
Undine. 
“Oh, course Cousin Ellen’s nice,” responded 
Tom; “but she can’t go out and dig in the 
shoals and dredge and dip like the doctor.” 
Undine had no desire to depreciate their 
good friend, for she, like Tom, had learned to 
love him dearly, and was greatly interested in 
what he told them of the old sea’s secrets, 
Dr. McLean was a faithful pastor and a 
diligent student. His hours upon the strand 
were his recreation, and the little dip net and 
improvised dredge brought up for him many 
things other than “elices and hydroids. To 
him the ocean with its vivid and changing 
pages was full of the thoughts of God, and he 
went down to its study reverently, with the 
thought in his heart, “The sea is his and he 
made it,” and it thus became to him full of 
sweet sermonry. 
To the boy and girl whose lessons had been 
tossed to them by the waves in the shape of 
shells and seaweeds, these implements—the dip 
net and the dredge—opened a new world of 
wonders. ‘To the ignorant, the brine and mud 
in the trawl would have disclosed only wrig- 
cling bits of transparency, tiny beads of glass, 
opaque or shining, atoms of quicksilver, and 
i 
