[Illustration:  Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid]

But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left off tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to amuse him.  Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle with the creatures, all but the water snakes, for they would stand no nonsense.  So he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up; and frightened the crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the tips of their eyes; and put stones into the anemones’ [Footnote:  The anemones spoken of here are not to be confused with the flowers which grow on land.  The sea anemones are alive, but the circles of tentacles about their mouths make them look like flowers of the most beautiful colors.  They have no eyes, and of course could not see what Tom was offering them.] mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner was coming.

The other children warned him, and said, “Take care what you are at.  Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.”  But Tom never heeded them, being quite riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one Friday morning early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.

A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her they all stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down their bathing dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if they were going to be examined by the inspector.

And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinoline at all, and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hooked nose, hooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above her eyebrows; and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod.  Indeed she was so ugly that Tom was tempted to make faces at her, but did not, for he did not admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm.

And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very much pleased with them, though she never asked them one question about how they were behaving; and then began giving them all sorts of nice sea things—­sea cakes, sea apples, sea oranges, sea bullseyes, sea toffee; and to the very best of all she gave sea ices, made out of sea-cows’ cream, which never melt under water.

Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl’s.  For he hoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did.  For the lady called him up, and held out her fingers with something in them, and popped it into his mouth; and lo and behold, it was a nasty, cold, hard pebble.

“You are a very cruel woman,” said he, and began to whimper.

“And you are a very cruel boy, who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones’ mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they have caught a good dinner.  As you did to them, so must I do to you.”

“Who told you that?” said Tom.

“You did yourself, this very minute.”

Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback indeed.