and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the old
buoy danced with them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over
the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the
breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up
over the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and
tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded
it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. And the terns
hovered over Tom like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and
the gulls laughed like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their
red bills and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and
whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked, and listened;
and he would have been very happy, if he could only have seen the
water-babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, and
swam round and round in search of them: but in vain. Sometimes he
thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of
the ripples. And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom:
but it was only white and pink shells. And once he was sure he had
found one, for he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. So
he dived down, and began scraping the sand away, and cried, "Don't
hide; I do want some one to play with so much!" And out jumped a
great turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped
away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over. And he sat down at
the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheer
disappointment.

To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to
find no water-babies! How hard! Well, it did seem hard: but
people, even little babies, cannot have all they want without
waiting for it, and working for it too, my little man, as you will
find out some day.