I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while.  At least, here she comes, looking like a clean, white, good little darling, as she always was and always will be.  For it befell in the pleasant short December days, when the wind always blows from the southwest, till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white tablecloth, ready for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs—­it befell (to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him.  Four days a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two he went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice he did; and when he got home in time, he dined at five.

It befell (to go on a second time), that Sir John, hunting all day and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the chimneys.  Whereon my Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him and the doctor and Captain Swinger, the agent, to snore in concert every evening to their hearts’ content.  So she started for the seaside with all the children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild applications of iodine.

Now, it befell that, on the very shore and over the very rocks where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day the little white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed—­ Professor Ptthmllnsprts.

He was a very worthy, kind, good-natured little old gentleman; and very fond of children, and very good to all the world as long as it was good to him.  Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out of the nursery window—­that when any one else found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck them, and bristle up his feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm at all.

So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which are to be seen there.  But little Ellie was not satisfied with them at all.  She liked much better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which she could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, “I don’t care about all these things, because they can’t play with me, or talk with me.  If there were little children now in the water, as there used to be, and I could see them, I should like that.”

“Children in the water, you strange little duck?” said the professor.