Nixie it was, however, who penetrated furthest into the fortress. She came with a fearless audacity that fairly made him tremble. She had only to approach for him to become aware how poorly his suit of armour fitted. But she was so gentle and polite about it that she was harder to withstand than all the others put together. She was slim and insinuating in body, mind and soul. Often, before he realised what she was talking about, her slender little fingers were between the cracks of his breast-plate. For instance, after leaving Toby and her “beedle,” he strolled down to the pine-wood and stood upon the rustic bridge watching the play of sunlight and shadow, when suddenly, out of the very water it seemed, up rose a veritable water-sprite—hatless and stockingless—Nixie, the ubiquitous. She scrambled lightly along the steep bank to his side, and leaned over the railing with him, staring at their reflections in the stream. ‘I declare you startled me, child!’ Paul exclaimed. Her eyes met his in the running reflection beneath them. Of course, it may have been merely the trick of the glancing water, but to him it seemed that her expression was elfin and mischievous. ‘Did I—_really_, Uncle Paul?’ she said after a long silence, and without looking up. But woven through the simple words, as sunlight is woven through clearing mist, he divined all the other meanings of the child’s subtle and curious personality. It amounted to this—she at once invited, nay included, him in her own particular tree and water world: included him because he belonged there with her, and she simply couldn’t help herself. There was no favour about it one way or the other. The compliment—the temptation—was overwhelming. Paul shivered a little, actually shivered, as he stood beside her in the sunshine. For several minutes they leaned there in silence, gazing at the flowing water. ‘The woods are _very_ busy—this evening,’ she said at length. ‘I’m sure they are,’ he answered, before he quite realised what he was saying. Then he pulled himself together with an effort. ‘But does Mlle. Fleury know, and approve—?’ he asked a little stiffly, glancing down at her bare legs and splashed white frock. ‘Oh, no,’ she laughed wickedly, ‘but then Mlle. only understands what she sees with her eyes! She is much too mixed up and educated to know all _this_ kind of thing!’ She made a gesture to include the woods about them. ‘Her sort of knowledge is so stuffing, you know.’ ‘Rather,’ he exclaimed. ‘I would far sooner know the trees themselves than know their Latin names.’ It slipped out in spite of himself. The next minute he could have bitten his tongue off. But Nixie took no advantage of him. She let his words pass as something taken for granted. ‘I mean—it’s better to learn useful things while you can,’ he said hurriedly, blushing in his confusion like a child. Nixie peered steadily down into the water for several minutes before she said anything more.