Wet Magic
"As if I didn't know that," said he, and ran across the narrow strip of sand that divided rocks from shingle and set his foot for the first time in The Sea. It was only a shallow little green and white rock pool, but it was the sea all the same.
"I say, isn't it cold," said Mavis, withdrawing pink and dripping toes; "do mind how you go—"
"As if I—" said Francis, again, and sat down suddenly and splashingly in a large, clear sparkling pool.
"Now, I suppose we've got to go home at once and you change," said Mavis, not without bitterness.
"Nonsense," said Francis, getting up with some difficulty and clinging wetly to Mavis to steady himself. "I'm quite dry, almost."
"You know what colds are like," said Mavis, "and staying indoors all day, or perhaps bed, and mustard plasters and gruel with butter in it. Oh, come along home, we should never have found the Mermaid. It's much too bright and light and everydayish for anything like magic to happen. Come on home, do."
"Let's just go out to the end of the rocks," Francis urged, "just to see what it's like where the water gets deep and the seaweed goes swish, swish, all long and lanky and grassy, like in the Sabrina picture."
"Halfway then, not more," said Mavis, firmly, "it's dangerous—deep outside—Mother said so."
And halfway they went, Mavis still cautious, and Francis, after his wetting, almost showing off in his fine carelessness of whether he went in again or not. It was very jolly. You know how soft and squeezy the blobby kind of seaweed is to walk on, and how satin smooth is the ribbon kind; how sharp are limpets, especially when they are covered with barnacles, and how comparatively bearable to the foot are the pale primrose-colored hemispheres of the periwinkle.
"Now," said Mavis, "come on back. We'll run all the way as
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