A hand took hold suddenly of her arm, and she was dragged across the floor in a great hurry, by the creature who had pulled her down from the log. It was a sprite; a water sprite, whose head just reached to her shoulder; full-grown, evidently, in spite of being so small; with pointed ears, and no hair on his head, and long green water grass trailing around him. He dragged Merrimeg straight to the star, and picked it up by a kind of sling that it was meant to hang by. It flashed and glittered as he snatched it up. He pointed to the floor, and Merrimeg saw, lying there side by side, three tiny sprites, babies, no bigger than kittens, and exactly like the grown one who was holding her arm. They looked as if they were asleep, but on the forehead of each one was a black and blue bruise, and Merrimeg knew that she must have hurt them with her stones, as well as broken the glass of their little home. Their father, if it was their father, motioned to her to pick them up. She gathered them up in her arms, and the sprite, carrying the star in one hand, seized her hair with the other hand and sprang up towards the holes in the broken glass roof; and in another instant she was being dragged upward through the water as fast as she had been pulled down. [Illustration: UPWARD THROUGH THE WATER ...] She almost dropped the little mites she was holding in her arms, but she hugged them tighter, and when they came to the surface of the pool she was holding them safe in her arms. They came out dripping on the bank of the pool, and there were the three starlight fairies. “Oh!” cried Winnie. “She’s brought my star!” The water sprite dragged Merrimeg onto the dry grass, and took the three babies from her arms and laid them down on the grass. “Now! now! now!” he cried. It was plain that he was very angry. He was trembling all over. “What are you going to do about it? Look what you’ve done.” “Why,” said Merrimeg, “why----” “First comes this horrible star and breaks in the roof of my house and lets in all the water! And then--oh you wicked creatures!--you throw down your ’bom’nable stones and break my roof all to pieces and kill my children--my poor children--_look_ at ’em--_look_ at ’em, will you?--look at those bumps on their foreheads--oh my poor children--You ’bom’nable creatures, you! You perfectly awful wicked ’bom’nable----” “Oh!” said Florrie. “It’s too bad. I’m so sorry.” “We didn’t mean to do any harm,” said Pennie. “And after he was so kind as to bring our star back to us, too,” said Winnie. “Is this your star?” cried out the water sprite. “Yes, yes! It’s mine!” said Winnie. “Then you’ll never get it! You shan’t have it!” cried the water sprite, angrier than ever. “You’ll see what I’m going to do with it! You’ll never get it again! Ah! there she goes!” He swung the star by the sling in his hand, and gave it a great fling, and away it flew over the tree tops, in a beautiful bright curve, higher and higher, and then lower and lower.