Page 197 - Adventures in shadow-land

the sea. It must have been but a damp, uncomfort­
able way to live for warm-blooded folks; but tell

me what they were like* or do you happen to have
a picture of one?”

" I 'm sorry to say I have not,*’
"D id they think they was like folks, or did

they live for ever ?’ *
“ Some said they were immortal, others that

they were only very long-lived. Plutarch says
they lived more than nine thousand years.,f

tl Creation ! What awful old maids they must
have been I That's more than old Mrs, Skinner,

who was eighty-six when she married John Dick­
enson, 'cause she said she wasn’ t going to have

* Miss' on her tombstone if she could help it.”
"B u t then they always remained young and
iovely, never grew old or changed. They used to

say that whoever looked on an unveiled nymph
went m ad/'

“ Waal, I'd risk that if I could see one. But
they was kind of onlucky sort of critters, then,

after all?” asked Job? who seemed to be inwardly
dwelling on some thought which he was keeping

out of the talk.