TIDEMARKS.
IT was low tide when we left Bristol; and the great gray rocks stood up bare and grim above the water; but high up on all their sides was a black line that seemed hardly dry, though it was far above the water.
"What makes that black mark on the rocks?"
I asked of my friend.
"Oh! That is the high-tide mark," she replied. "Every day, when the tide comes in, the water rises until it reaches that line, and in a great many years, it has worn the stone until the mark is cut into the rook."
"Oh! "thought I, "that is all, is it?" Well, I have seen a great many people that carry tidemarks on their faces. Right in front of me was a pretty little girl, with delicate features and pleasant blue eyes. But she had some queer little marks on her forehead; and I wondered how they came to be there; until presently her mother said: — "Draw down the blind now, Carrie; the sun shines right in baby's face."
"I want to look out," said Carrie, in a very peevish voice.
But her mother insisted; and Carrie drew the blind, and turned her face away from the window.
Oh, dear me, what a face it was. The blue eyes were full of frowns instead of smiles; the pleasant lips were drawn up in an ugly pout, and the queer marks on the forehead had deepened into actual wrinkles.
"Poor little girl!" I thought How bad you will feel when you grow up, to have your face marked all over with tide-marks of passion! For these evil tempers leave their marks just as surely as the ocean does; and I have seen many a face stamped so deeply with self-will and covetousness that it must carry the marks to the grave." Take care, children, and whenever you give way to bad temper, remember the "tide-marks."
London Children's Friend.