The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once, of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to.
She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels.
"Now and then," he would say, "now and then. Ours is a strange family: to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?"
"_Ochanorie!_ They are the lovely rings any way."
"They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be good enough for you."
"They're yours--for a kiss or two," and he put out an arm to wind round the girl's waist.
Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows.
"'_Stad!_" she cried. "We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these parts. Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but see them. Take them back, I must be going home."
The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh.
"Troth," he said, "and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business with more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who would give their souls for them--and the one they belong to."
"You have travelled?" said Marseli. "Of course a sea-fairy-"
"Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I ken France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's your equal?"
His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking.
"Tell me of Fairydom," said she, to change him off so dull a key.
"'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, self-same, madame," said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a bow.
He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, waving to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. "And all the roads lead one way," said he, "to a great and sparkling town. Rain or shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! The windows open on the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and look after us, who prance by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty hoof-beat on the causey stones; in the halls the tables gleam with silver and gold; the round red apples roll over the platter among the slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is the time of soft talk and the head full of gallant thoughts. Then there are the nights warm and soft, when the open doors let out the laughing and the gliding of silk-shooned feet, and the airs come in heavy with the scent of breckan and tree!"