Kathleen took some clinkers from the back of the rockery—“where they won’t show,” she said—and Mavis induced these to stand up like an arch in the middle of the glassy square. Tufts of long grass, rather sparingly arranged, looked not unlike waterweed. Bernard begged from the cook some of the fine silver sand which she uses to scrub the kitchen tables and dressers with, and Mavis cut the thread of the Australian shell necklace that Uncle Robert sent her last Christmas, so that there should be real, shimmery, silvery shells on the sand. (This was rather self-sacrificing of her, because she knew she would have to put them all back again on their string, and you know what a bother shells are to thread.) They shone delightfully through the glass. But the great triumph was the sea anemones—pink and red and yellow—clinging to the rocky arch just as though they were growing there. “Oh, lovely, lovely,” Kathleen cried, as Mavis fixed the last delicate flesh-tinted crown. “Come and look, France.” “Not yet,” said Mavis, in a great hurry, and she tied the thread of the necklace round a tin goldfish (out of the box with the duck and the boat and the mackerel and the lobster and the magnet that makes them all move about—you know) and hung it from the middle of the arch. It looked just as though it were swimming—you hardly noticed the thread at all. “_Now_, France,” she called. And Francis came slowly with his thumb in _The Water Babies_. It was nearly dark by now, but Mavis had lighted the four dollhouse candles in the gilt candlesticks and set them on the table around the aquarium. “Look through the side,” she said; “isn’t it ripping?” “Why,” said Francis slowly, “you’ve got water in it—and real anemones! Where on earth...?” “Not real,” said Mavis. “I wish they were; they’re only dahlias. But it does look pretty, doesn’t it?” “It’s like Fairyland,” said Kathleen, and Bernard added, “I _am_ glad you bought it.” “It just shows what it will be like when we _do_ get the sea creatures,” said Mavis. “Oh, Francis, you do like it, don’t you?” “Oh, I like it all right,” he answered, pressing his nose against the thick glass, “but I wanted it to be waving weeds and mysterious wetness like the Sabrina picture.” The other three glanced at the picture which hung over the mantelpiece—Sabrina and the water nymphs, drifting along among the waterweeds and water lilies. There were words under the picture, and Francis dreamily began to say them: “‘_Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting, Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave In twisted braids of Lillies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair...._’” “Hullo—what was that?” he said in quite a different voice, and jumped up. “What was what?” the others naturally asked. “Did you put something alive in there?” Francis asked. “Of course not,” said Mavis. “Why?” “Well, I saw something move, that’s all.”