"And what did _she_ say?" asked Master Torrey, eagerly.
"Oh, nothing. Anna Jane don't never have much to say for herself. I told her the wreath was your notion, and she kind of smiled, but she hadn't a word to say. But look here, Master Torrey, am I to have the making of the figure-head for your new ship, and what is it to be?"
"That's just what I have come to see you about, Job," said Master Torrey. "I am going to call her the Sea-nymph, and I want you to make the most beautiful full-length figure of a sea-nymph to stand on her bow and look across the water when the brig goes sailing away into the South Seas."
"A _sea-nimp_!" said Job; "and what sort of a critter may that be?"
"Never as I know of. There's more fish in the sea than ever come out of it. I expect these nimps of yourn are some of the kind that never come out."
"You never were more mistaken in your life, Job Chippit. They have been seen on the surface of the sea over and over again. We know almost all their names, and how could they have names if they were not real beings? Answer me that!"
"Oh!" said Job, standing back to take a general survey of his wooden Flora. "They're some of them heathen young women your head is always so full of, Master Torrey?"
"Young women! Why they were goddesses, man, or a sort of goddesses. Was there not the white-footed Thetis, mother of Achilles? and did she not come to him with all her attendant nymphs--Melite, and Doris, and Galatea, and Panope?"
"I've hearn tell of _her_," said Job, touching up the wreath on Flora's head; "it's in Lycidas:
'The air was calm, and on the level brine _Slick_ Panope and all her sisters played.'
"Jest so; I kinder like to read that piece. It don't seem to have so very much meanin' to't, I must say, but I sort of like the sound of it. Them nimps lived in the sea, or folks thought they did, didn't they?"
"Yes, Job, as we live on the land. I'm by no means sure that I haven't heard and seen Nereides and Oceanides myself when I've been out by moonlight on the bay or round the rocks."
"I guess they never was any round these parts; it's too cold for 'em. I knew an old sailor once that said he'd seen a mermaid, but I suppose you don't want me to stick a curly fish's tail on your figure-head?"