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little seaside resort in the Isle of Wight, was his summer abode. He
loved the sea both for its own sake and because of the number of
children whom he met at seaside places. Here is another "first
meeting"; this time it is at Sandown, and Miss Gertrude Chataway is
the narrator:--

I first met Mr. Lewis Carroll on the sea-shore at Sandown in
the Isle of Wight, in the summer of 1875, when I was quite a
little child.

We had all been taken there for change of air, and next door
there was an old gentlemen--to me at any rate he seemed
old--who interested me immensely. He would come on to his
balcony, which joined ours, sniffing the sea-air with his
head thrown back, and would walk right down the steps on to
the beach with his chin in air, drinking in the fresh
breezes as if he could never have enough. I do not know why
this excited such keen curiosity on my part, but I remember
well that whenever I heard his footstep I flew out to see
him coming, and when one day he spoke to me my joy was
complete.

Thus we made friends, and in a very little while I was as
familiar with the interior of his lodgings as with our own.

I had the usual child's love for fairy-tales and marvels,
and his power of telling stories naturally fascinated me. We
used to sit for hours on the wooden steps which led from our
garden on to the beach, whilst he told the most lovely tales
that could possibly be imagined, often illustrating the
exciting situations with a pencil as he went along.

One thing that made his stories particularly charming to a
child was that he often took his cue from her remarks--a
question would set him off on quite a new trail of ideas, so
that one felt that one had somehow helped to make the story,
and it seemed a personal possession It was the most lovely
nonsense conceivable, and I naturally revelled in it. His
vivid imagination would fly from one subject to another, and
was never tied down in any way by the probabilities of life.

To _me_ it was of course all perfect, but it is
astonishing that _he_ never seemed either tired or to
want other society. I spoke to him once of this since I have
been grown up, and he told me it was the greatest pleasure
he could have to converse freely with a child, and feel the
depths of her mind.

He used to write to me and I to him after