"Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; [Footnote: The Holothurians are curious creatures, such as the sea cucumbers or the sea slugs. One genus or class of them is known as the Synapta. These creatures are quite rudimentary, and have, as the professor's next remark will tell you, no eyes. A Cephalopod is higher in the scale, and has well-developed eyes.] with hands, too! It must be connected with Synapta." And he took him out. "It has actually eyes;" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This is most extraordinary!" "No, I ain't," cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be called bad names. "It is a water baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was. "Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned away sharply. Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is a water baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how little I know of the wonders of nature in spite of forty years of honest labour;"--I think that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him more firmly, and respected him more 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." [Illustration: ELLIE AND THE PROFESSOR] Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the while; 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 valiantly, 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. "But it was a water baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie. "Ah, it is gone!" And she jumped off the rock to try and catch Tom. 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.