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 CHAPTER FIVE

THE THREE CHILDREN looked at each other.

"Well!" said Mavis.

"I do think she's ungrateful," said Francis.

"What did you expect?" asked the Spangled Child.

They were all wet through. It was very late—they were very tired, and the clouds were putting the moon to bed in a very great hurry. The Mermaid was gone; the whole adventure was ended.

There was nothing to do but to go home, and go to sleep, knowing that when they woke the next morning it would be to a day in the course of which they would have to explain their wet clothes to their parents.

"Even you'll have to do that," Mavis reminded the Spangled Boy.

He received her remark in what they afterward remembered to have been a curiously deep silence. "I don't know how on earth we are to explain," said Francis. "I really don't. Come on—let's get home. No more adventures for me, thank you. Bernard knew what he was talking about." 61