solid ground. Mrs. Merton's object was now to get her little daughter a pair of shoes, or boots; as, though she wished Agnes to suffer a little when she left anything behind from want of care, she considered the melancholy scene they had witnessed at Black Gang Chine was sufficient to excuse a little forgetfulness. They therefore walked into the village to find a shoe-shop; but this was a very difficult task. They were first directed to a shop where the people sold eggs and bacon, cheese and butter, intermixed with articles of haberdashery, and boots and shoes; but, unfortunately, there were none there that fitted Agnes; and they had to walk a long way on the dusty road, and even to pass through a turnpike, before another shoemaker's could be found. The man here was civil and obliging; and Agnes had no difficulty in finding a pair of boots to suit her; but she could not help sighing as they retraced their steps back to the inn, and frequently exclaim"How glad I am, mamma, that we do not live at Shanklin !

ing,

The troubles of children soon pass, and by the time Agnes had eaten her dinner, she had forgotten all her dislike to Shanklin, and was gaily playing in

the beautiful little garden attached to the inn, with two or three dogs, a kitten, and what was better than all, a little girl of about her own age, who was also travelling with her parents through the island. In the evening Mrs. Merton persuaded her husband to walk as far as the Bazaar to look at a specimen, which she had seen in the morning, of the Siphonia, or Sea-tulip, a curious fossil, which the woman told her had been picked up on the beach. Mr. Merton doubted this; but as the Siphonia is found in the green sand formation of the Isle of Wight, they purchased it.

"What a curious thing it is!" said Agnes, looking at it. "Is it an animal?"

"It is a Zoophyte," said Mrs. Merton; " and it is generally considered to belong to the family of the sponges."

66

By the way, here are some petrified sponges," said Mr. Merton, "that Agnes may have to add to her cabinet."

"But sponges are not zoophytes, are they, papa?" asked Agnes. "I thought zoophytes were ani

mals."

66

Sponges are supposed to be the work of a

kind of Polypes," said Mrs. Merton, "as, when found, they are filled with a gelatinous matter,

abounding in transparent globules, and these globules are supposed to be the animals that form the sponge."

"Can the Polypes live when they are separated from the sponge?" asked Agnes.

"No," returned her mother, "the sponge, or skeleton, as it is called, appears to be as essential to the animal matter it contains, as the shell is to the snail."

182

CHAPTER VIII.

Sandown Bay.-Culver Cliff.-Sandown Fort.-High Flood.Girl and Dog.-Poultry.—Hares.—Butterflies.—Ichneumon

Fly.-Myrtles.-Brading.-Bembridge.-St. Helen's.-Arrival

at Ryde.

THE next morning was rather cooler than any day since the Mertons had been in the Isle of Wight; and Agnes felt the want of her little pink handkerchief round her neck. She did not like to complain, however, as she was aware it was entirely her own fault that the handkerchief had been lost; and so she bore the cold as well as she could, without saying a word about it. The road they were travelling commanded a beautiful view of Sandown Bay and Culver Cliff, on which last, Mr. Merton told Agnes, was formerly erected a beacon to warn the inhabitants when any danger was apprehended of an invasion