the pool, across the blue plush grass, and, before you could tell it,
disappeared around the turn of a little dim path Sara had never
followed.

Sara stood gazing after him. She had never seen anything that looked
like that before. Some of Avrillia's children came nearest to looking
like it: but not even they were so tinkly or so bubbly or so
altogether gay-looking. And how nimble it was--disappearing like a
drop of water trickling down a rock!

"What in the world?" breathed Sara again.

"--In Zeelup?" breathed the Teacup, quite as softly. But Sara hardly
heard her: she was so astonished at the babel of small voices that
started up about her feet. She had been so startled at the appearance
and the disappearance of that strange little creature that she had not
noticed that all the dolls were wriggling out of her arms and sliding
down her skirts and legs like schoolboys escaping from a burning
dormitory. Not that they were afraid of anything: it was only that
they were so glad to be able at last to move and talk.

"There he goes!" cried the Japanese doll, pointing excitedly: and
indeed they did catch one more glimpse of the fleeting sprite between
the shrubs. "He was mighty jolly," said the Brown Teddy-Bear enviously,
in his deep, mournful voice; and "Let's go catch him!" cried the Baby,
where it sat flat on the bricks, crowing and clapping its hands.

"I'll have to get off these togs, then," said the Billiken, who was
always fat and cheerful, but seldom spoke. He was driven to it this
time by the fact that Sara had dressed him in the Baby's long clothes.