“If you please, there’s a boy at the kitchen-door asking for the young ladies,” said the young maid-servant Ulrica, who generally waited on Ruby and Mavis.

They were just finishing their morning lessons with Miss Hortensia, and Mavis was putting away the books, a task which usually fell to her share.

Miss Hortensia gave a little start.

“A boy,” she exclaimed, “what kind of a boy? It can’t be – oh no of course not. How foolish I am. At the kitchen-door, did you say, Ulrica? Who is it?”

“Oh, I know!” cried Ruby, jumping up with a clatter, delighted to avoid finding out the mistake in a sum which Miss Hortensia had told her she must correct. “It’s Winfried; I’m sure it is. He’s come for some soup or something. I told him he might, but I do think it’s rather greedy to have come the very next day. Mayn’t I go and speak to him, cousin?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. No, I think it would be better for him to come in here. Show the boy in here, Ulrica – at least – ask him if he is old Adam’s grandson.”

In a minute or two the door was again opened.

“If you please, ma’am,” said Ulrica’s voice as before, “it’s – it’s the boy.”

“The boy” walked in; he held his cap in his hand, and made a sort of graceful though simple obeisance to the ladies. He did not seem the least shy, yet neither was there a touch of boldness about him. On his face was the slight but pleasant smile that had more than once lighted it up the day before, and his eyes, as he stood there full in the bright gleam of the window – for it was a clear and sunny day – were very blue.

Ruby came forward.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she said, with the half-patronising good humour usual to her when not put out. “I thought it was. It’s Winfried, cousin Hortensia; the boy I told you of. I suppose you’ve come for some soup for your grandfather.”

Winfried smiled, a little more than before. Mavis crept forward; she wished she could have said something, but she was afraid of vexing Ruby.

“No, miss,” said Winfried, “I did not come for that, though grandfather said it was very kind of you, and some day perhaps – ” he stopped short.

“I came to bring you this which I found on the rocks down below our cottage;” and he held out a little silver cross. Ruby started, and put her hand up to her neck.

“Oh dear,” she said, “I never knew I had lost it. Are you sure it isn’t yours, Mavis? I’ve got my cord on.”

“Yes, but the cross must have dropped off,” said Mavis. “I have mine all right.”

And so it proved. Both little sisters wore these crosses, which were exactly alike. Ruby took hers from Winfried, and began examining it to see how it had got loose. Miss Hortensia came forward.

“It was very good of you to bring the little cross,” she said kindly; for something about the boy attracted her very much. “Ruby, my dear,” she went on half reprovingly. Ruby started and looked up. “I am sure you are very much obliged?”

“Oh yes, of course I am,” said the little girl carelessly. “It certainly was very sharp of you to find it,” she added with more interest.

“I can generally find things,” said Winfried quietly.

“Is there anything we can do for your grandfather?” asked Miss Hortensia. “I am sorry to hear he’s so ill.”

The boy shook his head; a sad look passed across his bright face.

“Yes,” he said, “he’s pretty bad sometimes. But some days he’s much better. He’s better to-day. There’s one thing he would like,” he went on, “he told me to ask you if some day the young ladies might come to see him; he said I might ask – ”

Ruby interrupted —

“Why, how funny you are,” she said; “that was just what we wanted yesterday, and you wouldn’t let us go near the cottage. You said we’d startle him.”

“He was very tired yesterday,” said Winfried; “and you see he wasn’t looking for you.”

“He was chattering and laughing all the same – or somebody was,” said Ruby. “We heard them – don’t you remember?”

Winfried did not speak. But he did not seem vexed.

“I believe it was the mermaids after all,” Ruby went on. “Cousin Hortensia, if you let us go there the mermaids will steal us.”

“No, indeed,” exclaimed Winfried eagerly.

Miss Hortensia smiled at him.

“I am not afraid,” she said. “Tell your grandfather the young ladies shall certainly go to see him some day soon.”

“To-morrow,” said Mavis, speaking almost for the first time. “Oh, do say we may go to-morrow – it’s our half-holiday.”

“Very well,” said Miss Hortensia. “Are you sure you can find your way? I can send Ulrica with you.”

“Mayn’t I come to fetch the young ladies?” asked Winfried. “I know all the short cuts.”

“I should think you did,” laughed Ruby. “We told cousin Hortensia all about that queer path through the rocks. She’d never seen it either.”

“I’ll take you quite as nice a way to-morrow,” said the boy composedly. “May I go now, please?” he added, turning to Miss Hortensia. “Grandfather may be wanting me, and thank you very much;” and in another moment he was gone.

Miss Hortensia was quite silent for a minute or two after he had left the room.

“Cousin,” began Ruby; but her cousin did not seem to hear. “Cousin,” repeated the child impatiently.

Miss Hortensia looked up as if awakened from a brown study.

“Did you speak, my dear?” she said.

“Yes, of course I did. I want you to say something about that queer boy. I suppose you think him very nice, or you wouldn’t let Mavis and me go to his cottage. You’re generally so frightened about us.”

“I do think he is a very nice boy,” said Miss Hortensia. “I am sure he is quite trustworthy.”

“I believe he’s a bit of a fairy, and I’m sure his old grandfather’s a wizard,” murmured Ruby. “And I quite expect, as I said to Joan, that we shall be turned into sea-gulls or frogs if we go there.”

“I shouldn’t mind being a sea-gull,” said Mavis. “Not for a little while at least. Would you, cousin Hortensia?”

But Miss Hortensia had not been listening to their chatter.

“My dears,” she said suddenly, “I will tell you one reason why I should be glad for you sometimes to have Winfried as a companion if he is as good and manly as he seems. I have had a letter from your father, telling me of a new guest we are to expect. It is a cousin of yours – a little nephew of your father’s – your aunt Margaret’s son. He is an only child, and, your father fears, a good deal spoilt. He is coming here because his father is away at sea and his mother is ill and must be kept quiet, and Bertrand, it seems, is very noisy.”

“Bertrand,” repeated Ruby, “oh, I remember about him. I remember father telling us about him – he is a horrid boy, I know.”

“Your father did not call him a horrid boy, I’m sure,” said Miss Hortensia.

“No,” said Mavis, “he only said he was spoilt. And he said he was a pretty little boy, and nice in some ways.”

“Well, we must do our best to make him nicer,” said Miss Hortensia; “though I confess I feel a little uneasy – you have never been accustomed to rough bearish ways. And if Winfried can be with you sometimes he might help you with Bertrand.”

“When is he coming?” asked Ruby.

“Very soon, but I do not know the exact day. Now run off, my dears; there is time for you to have half an hour’s play in the garden before dinner.”

It was curious that of the two little girls Mavis seemed the more to dislike the idea of the expected guest.

“Ruby,” she said rather dolefully, “I do wish Bertrand weren’t coming. He’ll spoil everything, and we shan’t know what to do with him.”

“There’s not much to spoil that I see,” said Ruby.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, our nice quiet ways. Cousin Hortensia telling us stories and all that,” said Mavis. “And I’m sure Winfried won’t want to have to look after a rough, rude little boy. It’s quite different with us– Winfried likes us because we’re – ladies, you know, and gentle and nice to him.”

Ruby laughed.

“How you go on about Winfried – Winfried!” she said mockingly. “I think it’s a very good thing Bertrand is coming to put him down a bit – a common fisher-boy! I wonder at cousin Hortensia. I’m sure if father knew he wouldn’t be at all pleased, but I’m not going to tell him. I mean to have some fun with Master Winfried before I have done with him, and I expect Bertrand will help me.”

“Ruby!” exclaimed Mavis, looking startled, “you don’t mean that you are going to play him any tricks?” Ruby only laughed again, more mockingly than before.

“I’d like to lock him up in the haunted room in the west turret one night,” she said. “I do hope he’d get a good fright.”

Mavis seemed to have recovered from her alarm.

“I don’t believe he’d mind the least scrap,” she said; “that shows you don’t understand him one bit. He’d like it; besides, you say yourself you think he’s a fairy boy, so why should he be afraid of fairies?”

“Nobody’s afraid of fairies, you silly girl. But if cousin Hortensia saw anything in the turret – and I don’t believe she did, – it wasn’t a fairy, it was quite different – more a sort of witch, I suppose.”

“You’re always talking of witches and wizards,” retorted Mavis, who seemed to be picking up a spirit which rather astonished Ruby. “I like thinking of nicer things – angels and – oh Ruby!” she suddenly broke off, “do look here – oh, how lovely!” and stooping down she pointed to a thick cluster of turquoise blossoms, almost hidden in a corner beneath the shrubs. “Aren’t they darlings? Really it’s enough to make one believe in fairies or kind spirits of some kind – to find forget-me-nots like these in November!” and she looked up at her sister with delight dancing in her eyes.

Even Ruby looked surprised.

“They are beauties,” she said; “and I’m almost sure they weren’t there yesterday. Didn’t we come round by here, Mavis?”

“Not till it was nearly dark. We ran in this way, you know, after we came out of Winfried’s path,” said Mavis.

“Oh, yes, I remember,” Ruby replied, and a half dreamy look stole over her face.

They were standing on the lower terrace. This side of the castle, as I have said, was much more sheltered and protected than the other, but still already in November it was bleak and bare. The evergreen shrubs had begun to look self-satisfied and important, as I think they always do in late autumn, when their fragile companions of the summer are shivering together in forlorn misery, or sinking slowly and sadly, leaf by leaf, brown and shrivelled, into the parent bosom of Mother Earth, always ready to receive and hide her poor children in their day of desolation. Nay, more, far more than that does she for them in her dark but loving embrace; not a leaf, not a tiniest twig is lost or mislaid – all, everything, is cared for and restored again, at the sun’s warm kiss to creep forth in ever fresh and renewed life and beauty. For all we see, children dear, is but a type, faint and shadowy, of the real things that are.

Then a strange sort of irritation came over Ruby. The soft wondering expression so new to her disappeared, and she turned sharply to Mavis.

“Rubbish!” she said. “Of course they were there yesterday. But they shan’t be there to-morrow – here goes;” and she bent down to pick the little flowers.

Mavis stopped her with a cry.

“Don’t gather them, Ruby,” she said. “Poor little things, they might stay in their corner in peace, and we could come and look at them every day. They’d wither so soon in the house.”

Ruby laughed. She was much more careless than actually unkind, at least when kindness cost her little.

“What a baby you are,” she said contemptuously. “You make as much fuss as when I wanted to take the thrush’s eggs last spring. Wouldn’t you like to give your dear Winfried a posy of them?”

“No,” Mavis answered, “he wouldn’t like us to gather them; there are so few and they do look so sweet.” The next day was clear and bright, but cold; evidently winter was coming now. But old Bertha had started the fires at last, as the date on which it was the rule at the castle for them to begin on was now past. So inside the house it was comfortable enough – in the inhabited part of it at least; though in the great unused rooms round the tiled hall, where all the furniture was shrouded in ghostly-looking linen covers, and up the echoing staircase, and up still higher in the turret-rooms where the wind whistled in at one window and out again at the opposite one, where Jack Frost’s pictures lasted the same on the panes for days at a time – dear, dear, it was cold, even Bertha herself allowed, when she had to make her weekly tour of inspection to see that all was right.

“I will ask Miss Hortensia not to let the little ladies play in the west turret this winter,” thought the old woman. “I’m sure it was there Miss Mavis caught her cold last Christmas. A good fire indeed! It’d take a week of bonfires to warm that room.”

But old Bertha was mistaken, as you will see. There was no thought of playing in the west turret this half-holiday, however, for it was the right sort of day for a bright winter walk. And while the afternoon was still young, Ruby and Mavis, warmly wrapt up in their fur-lined mantles and hoods, were racing downstairs to Winfried, who had come punctually and was waiting for them, so Ulrica had come in to say, at the door in the archway on the sea side of the castle.

“What are you here for?” was Ruby’s first greeting. “Why didn’t you come to the garden side? Aren’t you going to take us by the path between the rocks, down below the field?”

“No, Miss Ruby,” said the boy, his cap in his hand. “We’re going another way to-day. I think you will like it just as well. We must go down to the cove first.”

“I don’t mind,” said Ruby, dancing on in front of the two others; “but I’m afraid Mavis has been dreaming of that nice cosy little path. She wouldn’t let me even look for the entrance to it yesterday; she said we should wait for you to show it us.”

“I think Miss Mavis will like to-day’s way just as well,” Winfried repeated.

They were some little distance down the cliff by this time. It was very clear and bright; for once, the waves, even though the tide was close up to the shore, seemed in a peaceful mood, and only as a distant murmur came the boom of their dashing against the rocks, round to the right beyond the little sheltered nook. Winfried stood still for a moment and gazed down seawards, shading his eyes with his hand, for winter though it was, the afternoon sunshine was almost dazzling.

“What is it? What are you looking for?” asked Ruby, coming back a step or two and standing beside him. “Do come on; it’s too cold to hang about.”

For once Winfried was less polite than usual. He did not answer Ruby, but turned to Mavis, who was a little behind.

“Do you see anything?” he asked.

And Mavis, following his eyes, answered, “Yes – there’s – oh, there’s a little boat drifting in – a tiny boat – is it drifting? No; there’s some one in it, – some one with a blue cloak; no, it must have been the waves just touching; the waves are so blue to-day.”

The boy gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

“I thought so,” he said. Then he sprang forward eagerly: “Come on,” he cried, “we mustn’t be late.”

Ruby followed, not too pleased.

“I’ve as good eyes as Mavis,” she said. “Why didn’t you ask me? I don’t believe there’s a boat at all.”

But even Ruby had to give in when in a few minutes they found themselves at the edge of the cove, on the little half-circle of sand which was all that the sea left uncovered at full tide. For there was a boat, a most unmistakable and delightful boat, though scarcely larger than a sofa, and looking like a perfect toy as it rocked gently on the rippling water.

“Goodness!” said Ruby, – and it must be allowed that goodness is a prettier word than rubbish, – “how in the world did that boat come here? Did you bring it, Winfried? No, for if you had you wouldn’t have been looking to see if it had come. But is it your boat?”

“No,” answered the boy; “it’s lent me, on purpose for you and Miss Mavis. Get in, please.”

Ruby came forward, but hesitated.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” she said. “You know the sea is very rough – round there near the village. And this is such a very little boat.”

Winfried laughed.

“It’s as safe as – as the safest thing you can think of,” he said. “You’re not afraid, Miss Mavis.”

For all answer the little girl sprang into the boat; it danced under her feet, but she only laughed.

“Come on, Ruby,” she called out; “it’s lovely.”

Ruby stepped in cautiously. The little boat was most dainty and pretty. There were cushions for the little girls, and one or two soft rich coloured shawls, of a fashion and material such as they had never seen before.

“Dear me,” said Ruby, settling herself in the most comfortable place and drawing the pretty rugs round her, “what a nice little boat! Your friends must be very rich, Winfried. But I know what I know;” and she shook her head mysteriously.

“What do you mean, Ruby?” said Mavis.

Winfried was busy with his oars and did not seem to be attending to them. Ruby leant forward and whispered, close into her sister’s ear, “Mermaids!” Then seeing or thinking that the boy was not listening, she went on. “You know mermaids are very rich. They dive down into the shipwrecked vessels and fish up all the treasures. I daresay these shawls have come from some strange country, right over at the other side of the world. Indeed, some people say that the horrid things sing to make the sailors turn to look for them and get their ships all in among the rocks.”

Mavis looked puzzled.

“I don’t think that’s mermaids,” she said. “There’s another name for those naughty, unkind creatures.”

“Syrens,” came Winfried’s voice from the other end of the boat. And he looked up with a smile at the little girls’ start of surprise. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “my friends are neither mermaids nor syrens; you’re not going to be shipwrecked in this boat, I promise you.” Somehow the boy seemed to have gained a new kind of dignity now that the children were, so to say, his guests. Ruby said, “Thank you,” quite meekly and submissively for her.

Then they were all quite silent for a while, only the plash of Winfried’s oars broke the stillness. And somehow out there on the water it seemed to have grown warmer, at least the children felt conscious of neither cold nor heat, it was just perfectly pleasant. And the sun shone on mildly. There was a thorough feeling of “afternoon,” with its quiet and mystery and yet faint expectation, such as one seldom has except in summer.

“It is lovely,” said Mavis presently; “only I’m a little afraid I’m getting sleepy.”

“No, you needn’t be afraid,” said Winfried; and just as he said the words, Mavis started, as something flitted against her cheek.

“Ruby, Ruby!” she exclaimed, “did you see it? A butterfly – a blue butterfly – in November! Oh, where has it gone to?” and she gazed all round anxiously.

Chapter Five.
The Fisherman’s Hut

”… There are things which through the gazing eye

Reach the full soul and thrill it into love.”

To my Child.

Ruby burst out laughing.

“You’ve been asleep and dreaming, you silly girl,” she said. “Winfried, do you hear? Mavis says a blue butterfly flew past.”

“It kissed my cheek,” said Mavis.

Winfried smiled: “It’s quite possible,” he said. Ruby was just turning upon him with her laughter, when something made her jump in turn. Something cold and damp touched her hand: she had taken her glove off and was dabbling idly in the water.

“Ugh,” she said, “I do believe that was a toad.” The laugh was against her now.

“A toad, Ruby, out at sea! What are you thinking of?” said Mavis. “You needn’t make fun of my butterfly if you talk of toads.”

“Well, it was something slimy and horrid like a toad,” said Ruby. “Perhaps it was only a fish. But whatever it was, I believe it was a trick of Winfried’s. I’m sure, positive sure, you’re a wizard, Winfried.”

She was half in fun and half in earnest. But the boy took it quite composedly.

“No, I’m not,” he said; “and no more is gran. But – people don’t understand, you see. If they see that one’s a bit different from others they’ve no words for it but wizard and uncanny, and they get frightened when it should be just the other way.”

This was much more of a speech than the fisher-boy was in the habit of making. Both the children listened with interest.

“How is your gran different from others?” asked Ruby.

“You’ll see it in his face; at least, I think you will,” said Winfried. “But now I mustn’t talk, we’re close to the little creek.”

He got the boat in most cleverly, to a very tiny creek, where was a little landing-place, and leading upwards from it a flight of steps cut in the rock.

“How funny, how very funny we never saw this place before,” exclaimed the little girls. “Do you keep the boat here, Winfried?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, “but not to-day. We won’t need it again.”

He folded up the shawls and laid them neatly on the cushions, then he drew in the oars, and in another moment he had helped the children to get on shore, and all three had mounted several of the rock steps when Winfried called to them to stop for a moment.

“Look down,” he said; and as he spoke, the little girls saw something moving there below where they had just landed. It was the little boat; calmly and steadily it was moving out to sea, though it had no sails, and the oars were lying just as Winfried had drawn them in.

“Oh Winfried,” exclaimed Ruby; “the dear little boat, it’s drifting out, it will be lost. Can’t you jump into the water and drag it back?”

“It’s all right,” said the boy. “It’s going home till it’s needed again. I only wanted you to see how quietly it goes off, once its business is done.”

And he turned and began to whistle softly as he went on up the steps.

“Now,” said Ruby, half triumphant and half frightened, in a whisper to Mavis, “now, can you say he’s not a wizard? I think cousin Hortensia was very silly to let us come with him, but it was all you, Mavis, going on about him so. If we’re not turned into toads or lizards before we get home, I – ”

“Butterflies would be nicer,” said Mavis, laughing.

“I’ll ask Winfried and his gran to make me into a blue butterfly, and you can be a yellow one if you like.”

She seemed to have caught something of Winfried’s happy confidence, Ruby looked at her in surprise, but it was mixed with anger. What she was going to have said I don’t know, for just then their guide called out again.

“Here we are,” he said, “if you’ll stoop your heads a little;” and looking up, the children saw before them a narrow, low archway, at the entrance to which the steps stopped. Ruby hung back a little, but Mavis ran forward.

“It’s all right, Ruby,” she called back; “and oh, what a pretty garden! Do come quick.”

Ruby followed. It was only necessary to stoop for a moment or two, then she found herself beside her sister, and she could not help joining in her exclamation of pleasure. Somehow or other they had arrived at the back of the cottage, which at this side, they now saw, stood in a pretty and sheltered garden. Perhaps garden is hardly the word to use, for though there were flowers of more than one kind and plants, there were other things one does not often see in a garden. There were ever so many little bowers and grottoes, cleverly put together of different kinds of queerly-shaped and queerly-coloured fragments of rock; there were two or three basins hollowed out of the same stones, in which clear water sparkled, and brilliant seaweed of every shade, from delicate pink to blood-red crimson, glowed; there were shells of strange and wonderful form, and tints as many as those of the rainbow, arranged so that at a little distance they looked like groups of flowers – in short, Ruby was not far wrong when returning to her old idea, she whispered to Mavis, “It’s a mermaid’s garden.”

“And I only hope,” she went on in the same tone, “we shan’t find that somehow or other he has got us down under the sea without our knowing.”

Mavis broke into a merry laugh.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “Look up; there’s the good old sun, smiling as usual, with no water between him and us. And see here, Ruby,” and she ran forward, “there are earth flower’s too, as well as sea ones.”

She was right; on a border sheltered by the wall of the cottage were great masses of fern, still green and luxuriant, and here and there among them clumps, brilliantly blue, of the tender, loving forget-me-not.

“It’s just like that bunch of it we found on our terrace,” said Mavis, joyfully. “I really could believe you had brought a root of it and planted it there for us, Winfried. I never saw such beauties.”

“Gran loves it,” was all the boy said. Then he led them round to the front of the house, and opened the door for them to enter.

Inside the cottage all was very plain, but very, very neat and clean. In an old-fashioned large wooden arm-chair by the fire sat old Adam. He looked very old, older than the children had expected, and a kind of awe came over them. His hair was white, but scarcely whiter than his face, his hands were unusually delicate and refined, though gnarled and knotted as are those of aged people. He looked up with a smile, for his sight was still good, as his visitors came in.

“You will forgive my not standing up, my dear little ladies,” he said. “You see I am very old. It is good of you to come to see me. I have often seen you, oftener than you knew, since you were very tiny things.”

“Have you lived here a long time, then?” asked Ruby.

“It would seem a long time to you, though not to me,” he said with a smile. “And long ago before that, I knew your grandmother and the lady who takes care of you. When I was a young man, and a middle-aged man too for that matter, my home was where theirs was. So I remember your mother when she was as little as you.”

“Oh, how nice,” exclaimed Mavis. “Was our mother like us, Mr Adam?”

“You may be very like her if you wish,” he said kindly.

But their attention was already distracted. On a small table, close beside the old man’s chair, in what at first sight looked like a delicate china cup, but was in reality a large and lovely shell, was a posy, freshly gathered apparently, of the same beautiful forget-me-nots.

“Oh, these are out of your garden,” said Ruby; “how do you manage to make them grow so well and so late in the year?”

“The part of the garden where they grow is not mine,” said Adam quietly; “it belongs to a friend who tends it herself. I could not succeed as she does.”

“Is – is she a mermaid?” asked Ruby, her eyes growing very round.

“No, my dear. Mermaids’ flowers, if they have any, would scarcely be like these, I think.”

“You speak as if there are no such things as mermaids; do you not think there are?” said Mavis.

Old Adam shook his head.

“I have never seen one; but I would never take upon myself to say there is nothing but what I’ve seen.”

“Tell us about the friend who plants these in your garden,” said Ruby, touching the forget-me-nots. “Could it have been she who put some on the terrace at the castle for us?”

“Maybe,” said the old man.

“Is she a lady, or – or a fairy, or what is she, if she’s not a mermaid?” asked Ruby.

Before the old man could answer, Winfried’s voice made her start in surprise.

“She’s a princess,” he said; and he smiled all over his face when he saw Ruby’s astonishment.

“Oh!” was all she said, but her manner became more respectful to both Adam and his grandson from that moment.

Then the old man made a sign to Winfried, and the boy went out of the room, coming back in a moment with a little plain wooden tray, on which were two glasses of rich tempting-looking milk and a basket of cakes, brown and crisp, of a kind the children had never seen before. He set the tray down on a table which stood in the window, and Adam begged the children to help themselves.

They did so gladly. Never had cake and milk tasted so delicious. Ruby felt rather small when she thought of her condescending offer of soup from the Castle kitchen.

“But then,” she reflected, “of course I didn’t know – how could I? – that a princess comes to see them. I daresay she sends them these delicious cakes. I wish Bertha could make some like them.”

“I never saw cakes like these before,” said little Mavis. “They are so good.”

Old Adam seemed pleased.

“My boy isn’t a bad cook,” he said proudly, with a glance at Winfried.

“Did you make them?” said Ruby, staring at Winfried. “I thought perhaps as a princess comes to see you that she sent you them – they are so very good.”

Winfried could not help laughing: something in Ruby’s speech seemed to him so comical.

Then at the little girls’ request he took them out again to examine some of the wonders of the grotto-garden. He fished out some lovely sprays of seaweed for them, and gave them also several of the prettiest shells; best of all, he gathered a sweet nosegay of the forget-me-nots, which Mavis said she would take home to cousin Hortensia. And then, as the sun by this time had travelled a long way downwards, they ran in to bid old Adam good-bye, and to thank him, before setting off homewards.

“How are we going?” asked Ruby. “You’ve sent away the boat.”

“I could call it back again, but I think we had better go a shorter way,” said Winfried. “You’re not frightened of a little bit of the dark, are you? There’s a nice short cut to the rock path through one of the arbours.”

The little girls followed him, feeling very curious, and, perhaps, just a tiny scrap afraid. He led them into one of the grottoes, which, to their surprise, they found a good deal larger than they had expected, for it lengthened out at the back into a sort of cave. This cave was too dark for them to see its size, but Winfried plunged fearlessly into its recesses.

“I must see that the way is clear,” he said, as he left them; “wait where you are for a few minutes.”

Ruby was not very pleased at being treated so unceremoniously.

“I don’t call waiting here a quick way of getting home,” she said, “and I hate the dark. I’ve a good mind to run out and go back the regular way, Mavis.”

“Oh no,” Mavis was beginning, but just then both children started. It seemed to have grown suddenly dark outside, as if a cloud or mist had come over the sky; and as they gazed out, feeling rather bewildered, a clear voice sounded through the grotto.