Alice and Beatrice

								

is! Look, Beatrice, blue and red and yellow—I cannot count the colours.’
‘It is a rainbow, Miss Alice,’ said Mary.
‘But what is a rainbow, and how does it come there?’
‘You must ask your grandmamma when you go home. I only know that it
comes when the rain is over.’
The sea had been very rough early in the morning. A sailor told the
children that it was then much too rough for them to bathe; but the rain
had come and made the sea smoother, and Alice said, ‘The rain has done
good again.’
The waves, or breakers, as they are called, when they came up on the
shore, were still too rough for the little girls to move about alone in
the water, so Mary let them sit near the edge and held them firmly; and
the white waves dashed over their heads and the froth covered them, and
they liked it very much.
They saw two fishermen afterwards putting a boat into the sea, and they
begged Mary to let them stay and see it go off. Several times the men
pushed the boat off the shore, and each time a big wave came and lifted
it up and threw it back again. Then two other men came to help them, and
pushed the boat with great force from the shore far into the water; and
the boat rocked up and down so much among the great waves, that the two
children were frightened, and Alice began to cry. But Mary told them not
to be afraid, for the men were quite safe, as the sea was much smoother
as soon as the boat had passed the breakers and was farther off the
shore.
When Alice and Beatrice were at home they told grandmamma all that they
had seen, and how high the waves were, and that there was so much white
froth on the shore.
Then Alice asked grandmamma to tell them about the rainbow that they had
seen. ‘It was so beautiful, grandmamma!’
‘I cannot explain to you the reason why the rainbow appears, but I know
that it is caused or made by the sun being reflected on the moist air.
You know, Alice, what “reflected” means; it is as when the light of the
candle is seen again, or reflected in the looking-glass: and the sun
shining on the moist air reflects those bright colours on a cloud. When
you are older you will learn all about it, and why it is always in the
shape of an arch or bow. Every one loves to see a rainbow, because it
reminds us of the promise God made to Noah, and all people, after the
flood, that He would no more destroy all flesh, which means, every
living creature.’
‘I remember all about it, grandmamma,’ said Alice; ‘I have read it in my
Bible stories. May I read it to Beatrice?’ and Alice fetched her book
and read about the flood and the rainbow to Beatrice; and afterwards
grandmamma read to them from the Bible as follows (Gen. ix. 13-15): ‘I
do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant
between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a