beautiful clothes--a lord, presumably--lifted me into a high
carved chair, and stood behind it, brooding over me like a
Providence. I endeavoured to explain who I was and where I had
come from, and to impress the company with my own tooth-brush and
Harold's tables; but either they were stupid--or is it a
characteristic of Fairyland that every one laughs at the most
ordinary remarks? My friend the Man said good-naturedly, "All
right, Water-baby; you came up the stream, and that's good enough
for us." The lord--a reserved sort of man, I thought--took no
share in the conversation.

After lunch I walked on the terrace with the Princess and my
friend the Man, and was very proud. And I told him what I was
going to be, and he told me what he was going to be; and then
I remarked, "I suppose you two are going to get married?" He
only laughed, after the Fairy fashion. "Because if you aren't,"
I added, "you really ought to": meaning only that a man who
discovered a Princess, living in the right sort of Palace like
this, and didn't marry her there and then, was false to all
recognised tradition.

They laughed again, and my friend suggested I should go down to
the pond and look at the gold-fish, while they went for a stroll.

I was sleepy, and assented; but before they left me, the grown-up
man put two half-crowns in my hand, for the purpose, he
explained, of treating the other water-babies. I was so touched
by this crowning mark of friendship that I nearly cried; and
thought much more of his generosity than of the fact that the
Princess; ere she moved away, stooped down and kissed me.