fixed her round blue eyes upon me, as if in
wonder, then looked away and said shortly, 'No one else.' And I could
not get her to confess or admit then or at any time afterward that she
had any cognisance at all of the fairy in Bran's kennel, although
their communications were daily, and often lasted for hours at a time.
I don't know that it makes things any better, but I have thought
sometimes that the child believed me to be as insensible to Thumbeline
as her mother was. She can only have believed it at first, of course,
but that may have prompted her to a concealment which she did not
afterwards care to confess to.

"Be this as it may, Florrie, in fact, behaved with Thumbeline exactly
as the two dogs did. She made no attempt to catch her at her circlings
and wheelings about the kennel, nor to follow her wonderful dances,
nor (in her presence) to imitate them. But she was (like the dogs)
aware of nobody else when under the spell of Thumbeline's personality;
and when she had got to know her she seemed to care for nobody else at
all. I ought, no doubt, to have foreseen that and guarded against it.

"Thumbeline was extremely attractive. I never saw such eyes as hers,
such mysterious fascination. She was nearly always good-tempered,
nearly always happy; but sometimes she had fits of temper and kept
herself to herself. Nothing then would get her out of the kennel,
where she would lie curled up like an animal with her knees to her
chin and one arm thrown over her face. Bran was always wretched at
these times, and did all he knew to coax her out. He ceased to care
for me or my wife after she came to us, and instead of being wild at
the prospect of his Saturday and Sunday runs, it was hard to get him
along. I had to take him on a lead until we had turned to go home;
then he would set off by himself, in spite of hallooing and scolding,
at a long steady gallop and one would find him waiting crouched at the
gate of his run, and Thumbeline on the ground inside it, with her legs
crossed like a tailor, mocking and teasing him with her wonderful
shining eyes. Only once or twice did I see her worse than sick or
sorry; then she was transported with rage and another person
altogether. She never touched me--and why or how I had offended her I
have no notion[5]--but she buzzed and hovered about me like an angry
bee. She appeared to have wings, which hummed in their furious
movement; she was red in the face, her eyes burned; she grinned a