ll womanhood, but she
would not have been Winifred. A charm superior to all other women's
charm she still would have had; but she would not have been Winifred.

When she left the rocks and came upon the clear sand, she stopped
and looked at her sweet shadow in the moonlight. Then, with the
self-pleasing playfulness of a kitten, she stood and put herself
into all kinds of postures to see what varying silhouettes they would
make on the hard and polished sand (that shone with a soft lustre
like satin); now throwing up one arm, now another, and at last making
a pirouette, twirling her shawl round, trying to keep it in a
horizontal position by the rapidity of her movements.

The interest of the philosophic Snap was aroused at last. He began
wheeling and barking round her, tearing up the sand as he went like a
little whirlwind. This induced Winifred to redouble her gymnastic
exertions. She twirled round with the velocity of an engine wheel. At
last, finding the enjoyment it gave to Snap, she changed the
performance by taking off her hat, flinging it high in the air,
catching it, flinging it up again and again, while the moving shadow
it made was hunted along the sand by Snap with a volley of deafening
barks. By this time she had got close to me, but she was too busy to
see me. Then she began to dance--the very same dance with which she
used to entertain me in those happy days. I advanced from my stone,
dodging and slipping behind her, unobserved even by Snap, so intent
were these two friends upon this entertainment, got up, one would
think, for whatsoever sylphs or gnomes or water sprites might be
looking on.

How could I address in the language of passion which alone would have
expressed my true feelings, a dancing fairy such as this?

'Bravo!' I said, as she stopped, panting and breathless. 'Why,
Winifred, you dance better than ever!'

She leaped away in alarm and confusion; while Snap, on the contrary,
welcomed me with much joy.

'Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,' she said, not looking at me with the
blunt frankness of childhood, as the little woman of the old days
used to do, but drooping her eyes. 'I didn't see you.'

'But _I_ saw _you_, Winifred; I have been watching you for the last
quarter of an hour.'

'Oh, you never have!' said she, in distress; 'what could you have
thought? I was only trying to cheer up poor Snap, who is out of
sorts. What a mad romp you must have thought me, sir!'

'Why, what's the matter w