Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/88

 Then she thought: a great brownish-green fish had shot into the middle of the shoal, seized one of them, and carried it off. It was so quick that Eepersip could not think, until some time after it was all over, what had really happened.

She swam to the shore, but, to her surprise, it was quite a different shore from where she had started. She wondered where she was, She landed on a beach of white sand, so fine that it was impossible to hold. It was covered with shells of all colours. These interested her for a long time, and she piled up the whole beach with heaps of them that she had collected, and had a beautiful time playing with herself until

She saw some footprints! Footprints! They came down on the beach and apparently into the water, then out again, and disappeared in the woods on a narrow path which Eepersip had not noticed before.

But she was not interested in where they went to or where they came from. Her only thought was to get awayaway. It was then too late to go out in the sea againthat is, far from shore. The sun-was about to set. She would spend the night there, and then she would wander again. So she lay down and went to sleep.