“It was very curious,” she said thoughtfully, “a most odd experience, that little boy ... his having been born of people who had always been rich, really seemed to me to be important. I assure you it did. Funny, wasn’t it? And now I want you all to come home with me, and see where I live.” She smiled radiantly at them, and they all said, “Thank you,” and looked at each other rather blankly. “All our people will be unspeakably pleased to see you. We Mer-people are not really ungrateful. You mustn’t think that,” she said pleadingly. She looked very kind, very friendly. But Francis thought of the Lorelei. Just so kind and friendly must the Lady of the Rhine have looked to the “sailor in a little skiff” whom he had disentangled from Heine’s poem, last term, with the aid of the German dicker. By a curious coincidence and the same hard means, Mavis had, only last term, read of Undine, and she tried not to think that there was any lack of soul in the Mermaid’s kind eyes. Kathleen who, by another coincidence, had fed her fancy in English literature on the “Forsaken Merman” was more at ease. “Do you mean down with you under the sea?” she asked— “‘_Where the sea snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail and bask in the brine, Where great whales go sailing by, Sail and sail with unshut eye Round the world for ever and aye?_’” “Well, it’s not exactly like that, really,” said the Mermaid; “but you’ll see soon enough.” This had, in Bernard’s ears, a sinister ring. “Why,” he asked suddenly, “did you say you wanted to see us at dead of night?” “It’s the usual time, isn’t it?” she asked, looking at him with innocent surprise. “It is in all the stories. You know we have air stories just as you have fairy stories and water stories—and the rescuer almost always comes to the castle gate at dead of night, on a coal-black steed or a dapple-gray, you know, or a red-roan steed of might; but as there were four of you, besides me and my tail, I thought it more considerate to suggest a chariot. Now, we really ought to be going.” “Which way?” asked Bernard, and everyone held their breath to hear the answer. “The way I came, of course,” she answered, “down here,” and she pointed to the water that rippled around her. “Thank you so very, _very_ much,” said Mavis, in a voice which trembled a little; “but I don’t know whether you’ve heard that people who go down into the water like that—people like us—without tails, you know—they get drowned.” “Not if they’re personally conducted,” said the Mermaid. “Of course we can’t be responsible for trespassers, though even with them I don’t think anything very dreadful has ever happened. Someone once told me a story about Water Babies. Did you ever hear of that?” “Yes, but that was a made-up story,” said Bernard stolidly. “Yes, of course,” she agreed, “but a great deal of it’s quite true, all the same. But you won’t grow fins and gills or anything like that. You needn’t be afraid.”