deeply, and loved
him better, than ever she had done before. But he was of a different
opinion. He hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half
wished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid
of him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of
anything better to do; and said carelessly, "My dear little maid, you
must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of
them."

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the
while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a
Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that
if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too,
and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the
professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright
and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit
the professor's finger till it bled.

"Oh! ah! yah!" cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped
him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water and was gone
in a moment.

[Illustration: "The fairies came flying in at the window and brought her
such a pretty pair of wings."--_P. 126._]

"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie. "Ah, it is
gone!" And she jumped down off the rock to try and catch Tom before he
slipped into the sea.

Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and fell
some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to her,
and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not waken
at all. So he took her up in his arms and carried her to her governess,
and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there
quite still; only now and then she woke up and called out about the
water-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not
tell, for he was ashamed to tell.

And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in at
the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could
not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and
over the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody
heard or saw anything of her for a very long while.

And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby. For
my part, I believe that the natural