“But it’s an awfully pretty cave,” said Mavis consolingly. “Thank you for showing it to us, Reuben. And it’s jolly cool. Do let’s rest a minute or two. I’m simply boiling, climbing that cliff path. We’ll go down to the sea in a minute. Reuben could wait here if he felt safer.” “All right, squattez-vous,” said Bernard, and the children sat down at the water’s edge, Reuben still very awkward in his girl’s clothes. It was very, very quiet. Only now and then one fat drop of water would fall from the cave’s roof into that quiet pool and just move its surface in a spreading circle. “It’s a ripping place for a hidey-hole,” said Bernard, “better than that old bush of yours, anyhow. I don’t believe anybody knows of the way in.” “_I_ don’t think anyone does, either,” said Reuben, “because there wasn’t any way in till it fell in two days ago, when I was trying to dig up a furze root.” “I should hide here if you want to hide,” said Bernard. “I mean to,” said Reuben. “Well, if you’re rested, let’s get on,” Francis said; but Kathleen urged: “Do let’s say ‘Sabrina fair,’ first—just to try!” So they said it—all but the Spangled Child who did not know it— “‘_Sabrina fair Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassie, cool...._’” There was a splash and a swirl in the pool, and there was the Mermaid herself, sure enough. Their eyes had grown used to the dusk and they could see her quite plainly, could see too that she was holding out her arms to them and smiling so sweetly that it almost took their breath away. “My cherished preservers,” she cried, “my dear, darling, kind, brave, noble, unselfish dears!” “You’re talking to Reuben, in the plural, by mistake, I suppose,” said Francis, a little bitterly. “To him, too, of course. But you two most of all,” she said, swishing her tail around and leaning her hands on the edge of the pool. “I _am_ so sorry I was so ungrateful the other night. I’ll tell you how it was. It’s in your air. You see, coming out of the water we’re very susceptible to aerial influences—and that sort of ungratefulness and, what’s the word—?” “Snobbishness,” said Francis firmly. “Is that what you call it?—is most frightfully infectious, and your air’s absolutely crammed with the germs of it. That’s why I was so horrid. You do forgive me, don’t you, dears? And I was so selfish, too—oh, horrid. But it’s all washed off now, in the nice clean sea, and I’m as sorry as if it had been my fault, which it really and truly wasn’t.” The children said all right, and she wasn’t to mind, and it didn’t matter, and all the things you say when people say they are sorry, and you cannot kiss them and say, “Right oh,” which is the natural answer to such confessions.