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NATALIE;

or,

A GEM AMONG THE SEA-WEEDS

By

FERNA VALE.

1859.



To thee, my darling Hattie, I dedicate the Sea-Flower
would that this casket contained for such as thou,
a purer gem.




PREFACE.


In writing the following pages the author has spent pleasant hours,
which perhaps might have been less profitably employed: if anything of
interest be found among them, it is well,--and, should any be led to
take up their Cross in meekness and humility, searching out the path
that leads the wanderer home, it is indeed well.






NATALIE.




CHAPTER I.


THE SEA-FLOWER.


  "What was it that I loved so well about my childhood's home?
   It was the wide and wave-lashed shore, the black