"I can _quite_ believe _that_, at any rate," said my cousin Melville with unction. I know he did, although he always leaves it out of the story when he tells it to me. But then he forgets that I have had the occasional privilege of making a third party in these good long talks. "You know it's most extraordinary and exactly like the German story," said Mrs. Bunting. "Oom--what is it?" "Undine?" "Exactly--yes. And it really seems these poor creatures are Immortal, Mr. Melville--at least within limits--creatures born of the elements and resolved into the elements again--and just as it is in the story--there's always a something--they have no Souls! No Souls at all! Nothing! And the poor child feels it. She feels it dreadfully. But in order to _get_ souls, Mr. Melville, you know they have to come into the world of men. At least so they believe down there. And so she has come to Folkestone. To get a soul. Of course that's her great object, Mr. Melville, but she's not at all fanatical or silly about it. Any more than _we_ are. Of course _we_--people who feel deeply----" "Of course," said my cousin Melville, with, I know, a momentary expression of profound gravity, drooping eyelids and a hushed voice. For my cousin does a good deal with his soul, one way and another. "And she feels that if she comes to earth at all," said Mrs. Bunting, "she _must_ come among _nice_ people and in a nice way. One can understand her feeling like that. But imagine her difficulties! To be a mere cause of public excitement, and silly paragraphs in the silly season, to be made a sort of show of, in fact--she doesn't want _any_ of it," added Mrs. Bunting, with the emphasis of both hands. "What _does_ she want?" asked my cousin Melville. "She wants to be treated exactly like a human being, to _be_ a human being, just like you or me. And she asks to stay with us, to be one of our family, and to learn how we live. She has asked me to advise her what books to read that are really nice, and where she can get a dress-maker, and how she can find a clergyman to sit under who would really be likely to understand her case, and everything. She wants me to advise her about it all. She wants to put herself altogether in my hands. And she asked it all so nicely and sweetly. She wants me to advise her about it all." "Um," said my cousin Melville. "You should have heard her!" cried Mrs. Bunting. "Practically it's another daughter," he reflected. "Yes," said Mrs. Bunting, "and even that did not frighten me. She admitted as much." "Still----" He took a step. "She has means?" he inquired abruptly.