But she was born to wander, and it was not long before she was off on her explorations again. One sparkling day when the sun danced and glimmered on the little ripples, Eepersip started to explore the shoreline. Every sun-sparkle made her feel happier and happier, and every breath of salty air lighter, until at last she thought she must rise up into the air on strong wings. After exploring quite a while and finding nothing unusual, she sat down on a rock. Her auburn curls goldened in the sunlight, and her brown eyes sparkled.
After she had rested a while, watching the swooping seagulls, she decided to collect shells. She went along the beach some way, picking up shells and pebbles. But soon she tired of this and, feeling very hot, flung herself into the sea and played a while in the shallow water. Soon she thought that she would like to take a long swim, and she started out rapidly.
The waves came in higher and higher and brought with them great flocks of gulls sweeping around in wide graceful circles and uttering strange wild cries. Eepersip went on a long way until she saw a great rock ahead, draped with seaweeds of a dark green which were floating up and down with the motion of the waves. There were many crabs and snails caught in them. She was borne forward to the rock in a mighty wave, and, clinging to it hard, she waited until the wave drew back before climbing up. After she had rested some time she noticed a shoal of shining little fishes down in the water. Some were gold, some silver, and some had bands of dark blue. They all had ruby eyes. She watched them for a long time, lying on her stomach on the rock. She observed how they nosed down and fed on the oozy sea-plants on the bottom, which were covered with silver oxygen-bubbles. Also she could see, ’way down there, lovely bright corals of all colours. The water was rather muddy, but there was a current coming in underneath, and before long it was perfectly clear. The rock was tremendous, spreading out beneath the surface and going down, down, all covered with slime and seaweeds. Eepersip was fascinated watching those little fishes: she cared for nothing else. How long might she have watched them if the tide had not been rising and rising? Now it was touching her dress when a ripple larger than the others came in. And now—a flash of lightning down there in the shadows! Eepersip could not realize what had happened. Then she thought: a great brownish-green fish had shot into the middle of the shoal, seized one of them, and carried it off. It was so quick that Eepersip could not think, until some time after it was all over, what had really happened.
She swam to the shore, but, to her surprise, it was quite a different shore from where she had started. She wondered where she was. She landed on a beach of white sand, so fine that it was impossible to hold. It was covered with shells of all colours. These interested her for a long time, and she piled up the whole beach with heaps of them that she had collected, and had a beautiful time playing with herself until—
She saw some footprints! Footprints! They came down on the beach and apparently into the water, then out again, and disappeared in the woods on a narrow path which Eepersip had not noticed before.
But she was not interested in where they went to or where they came from. Her only thought was to get away—away. It was then too late to go out in the sea again—that is, far from shore. The sun was about to set. She would spend the night there, and then she would wander again. So she lay down and went to sleep.
The next morning when she woke up she was not alone. A little golden-haired boy with sky-blue eyes was looking at her. They looked at each other for a long time.
“Who are you?” he ventured at last.
Here was a puzzler. “Eepersip Eigleen,” she answered. “I mean,” she added doubtfully, “I was.”
“Who are you now, then?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I haven’t any name now. I’m just somebody. Have you any name?”
“Yes—Toby—Toby Carrenda.”
“Do you live here in the woods?”
“Yes.”
“In a house?”
He looked at her curiously a moment; then he said: “Yes, of course—don’t you?”
“No!”
“How funny!”
“Yes, it is.” With a little reluctance—“Will you play with me?”
Strange: here was Eepersip, who detested people, asking a little boy to play with her! It was simply that she, not having seen any children for a long time, was fascinated by this small boy who seemed so unafraid of her and so natural.
They wandered together on the beach and picked up shells. Then Eepersip asked the little boy if he liked to swim.
“Yes,” he said. “But do you think I’d better?”
“Yes—why not?”
“All right.”
So he took off all his clothes and went in with her, and they splashed each other and had a lovely time. Eepersip wanted to make him a mermaid dress, but there was no seaweed right there, and she didn’t want to leave him. So they went into the woods to find some ferns to make him a nymph dress. She found a beautiful ferny glade, and sat down and began to weave ferns together, talking to him at the same time. When it was all done he was delighted.
“But, please,” he said, “can’t I have a shell, too?”
He touched the shell strung up on her seaweed dress. They looked all over the beach, and at last
