The girl struggled into a sitting posture and then rose to her feet. She was tall, almost as tall as I was, and about my age, I should think. Her dress, so far as one could judge, it being sopped with water, was a poor patched affair, and rough country shoes were on her feet.
“Take me somewhere, where I can dry,” she said, imperiously. “Don’t let him come—he needn’t follow.”
“He’s my brother,” I said.
“I don’t care. He wanted to drown me; he didn’t know I can’t die by water.”
“Can’t you?” I said.
“Of course not. I’m a changeling!”
She said it with a childish seriousness that confounded me.
“What made you one?” I asked.
“The fairies,” she said, “and that’s why I’m here.”
I was too bewildered to pursue the subject further.