sip, Eeserpip, Eepersip — funny name I — I bet she'll go home fast when she finds out."
"Perhaps—but she is like a sea-nymph now. How strange it is! Well, it's worth trying, at any rate."
Eepersip had listened with growing amazement—fascinated, entranced. But when they paused in their conversation, the charm was broken that had held her there. She sped away into the woods. She came to a place that she knew well, a glade surrounded by ferns and a few wild-rose-bushes now in bloom.
She had a little sister!—it was too much. And that little sister haunted her dreams and her imagination, making everything seem less joyful than before. She felt a strange longing—the longing to see her. She might he several years old now. Eepersip had forgotten what a "year" meant, but she had a vague feeling that Fleuriss had been living some time already. Why had no one told her? She felt a sort of angry resentment, but it cooled immediately when she remembered that her parents had been trying desperately to tell her. Yes, a plan was certainly shaping itself in Eepersip's mind—but not the plan of letting herself be caught, tamed, and carried home. No indeed. She dreamed of some day going home by stealth,
