Sabrina Fair
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.
7
