wheeling and barking round her, tearing up the sand as he went like a
little whirlwind. This induced Winifred to redouble her gymnastic
exertions. She twirled round with the velocity of an engine wheel. At
last, finding the enjoyment it gave to Snap, she changed the
performance by taking off her hat, flinging it high in the air,
catching it, flinging it up again and again, while the moving shadow
it made was hunted along the sand by Snap with a volley of deafening
barks. By this time she had got close to me, but she was too busy to
see me. Then she began to dance--the very same dance with which she
used to entertain me in those happy days. I advanced from my stone,
dodging and slipping behind her, unobserved even by Snap, so intent
were these two friends upon this entertainment, got up, one would
think, for whatsoever sylphs or gnomes or water sprites might be
looking on.

How could I address in the language of passion which alone would have
expressed my true feelings, a dancing fairy such as this?

'Bravo!' I said, as she stopped, panting and breathless. 'Why,
Winifred, you dance better than ever!'

She leaped away in alarm and confusion; while Snap, on the contrary,
welcomed me with much joy.

'Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,' she said, not looking at me with the
blunt frankness of childhood, as the little woman of the old days
used to do, but drooping her eyes. 'I didn't see you.'

'But _I_ saw _you_, Winifred; I have been watching you for the last
quarter of an hour.'