Page:The water-babies.djvu/256

THE WATER BABIES all day. But as she held the baby over the gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling in the ship's wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom.

He was quite sure of that; for when their eyes met, the baby smiled and held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands, too; and the baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him.

"What do you see, my darling?" said the lady; and her eyes followed the baby's till she, too, caught sight of Tom swimming about among the foam-beads below.

She gave a little shriek and start, and then she said, quite quietly, "Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the happiest place for them"; and waved her hand to Tom and cried, "Wait a little, darling, only a little: and perhaps we shall go with you and be at rest."

And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her and drew her in. And Tom turned northward, sad and wondering; and watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights on board peep out one by one and die out again, and the long bar of smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was out of sight.

And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to 230