A crown of green seaweed was on the dripping curls; the arms playing idly upon the surface were round, dimpled, and exquisitely white.

The dark brownish body he could hardly now see; it was foreshortened to his sight, down slanting deep under the disturbed surface.

If it had not been for the indisputable evidence of his senses that this lovely sea thing swam, not with arms or feet, but with some snake-like motion, he might still have tried to persuade himself that some playful girl, strange to the ways of the neighbourhood, was disporting herself at her bath.
It was of no avail that his reason told him that he did not, could not, believe that such a creature as a mermaid could exist.

The big dark eyes of the girlish face opened wide and looked at him, the dimpled mouth smiled, and the little white hand came out from the water and beckoned to him again.
He was suffering from no delirium; he had not lost his wits.

He stamped his foot to make sure that the rock was beneath him; he turned about on it to rest his eyes from the water sparkles, and to recall all sober, serious thought by gazing at the stable shore.