It was a strange thing. But the game was up, for the skeleton no
longer touched the strings; it played on the water as if it were
knocking at a door with its fingers, asking whether it might come
in.

The game was up. A school of sticklebacks came and swam right through
the box, and when they trailed their spikes over the strings, the
strings sounded again; but they played in a new way, for now they
were tuned to another pitch.

***

On a rosy summer evening soon afterwards two children, a boy and
a girl, were sitting on the landing-bridge. They were not thinking
of anything in particular, unless it was a tiny piece of mischief,
when all at once they heard soft music from the bottom of the sea,
which startled them.

"Do you hear it?"

"Yes, what is it? It sounds like scales."

"No, it's the song of the gnats."

"No, it's a mermaid!"

"There are no mermaids. The schoolmaster said so."

"The schoolmaster doesn't know."