The fire-place was flanked by great branches of coral, and on the top of the air-tight stove there stood always in summer-time, when there was no fire, a superb nautilus shell, like a little pearl vessel.

The corner what-not, too, had its shelves heaped with shells and coral and choice bits of rainbow lava from volcanic islands.
Between the windows, instead of the conventional mahogany cardtable, stood one of Indian lacquer, and on it was a little inlaid cabinet that was brought from over seas.

The whole room in this little inland cottage, far beyond the salt fragrance of the sea, seemed like one of those marine fossils sometimes found miles from the coast.

It indicated the presence of the sea in the lives of Amanda's race.

Her grandfather had been a seafaring man, and so had her father, until late in life, when he had married an inland woman, and settled down among waves of timothy and clover on her paternal acres.
Amanda was like her mother, she had nothing of the sea tastes in her nature.