‘I am sure you are very kind,’ said the sea-fairy in a voice that trembled. ‘But, dear little maid, I couldn’t be happy anywhere away from my relations and friends, and I couldn’t live out of the sea very long, and if you were to take me to your house and keep me there I should fade away and vanish with fretting.’
‘Would you really?’ cried Bessie Jane. ‘Then I won’t take you to my home. If you like, I’ll carry you down the sand and put you back into the sea.’
‘Oh, will you, dear little girl?’ cried the tiny creature joyfully, her eyes growing as bright as her hair. ‘I will be always grateful to you if you will. My little brothers and sisters and crowds of my friends are in the sea close to the shore watching me.’
‘I can’t see them,’ said Bessie Jane, turning her gaze seaward. ‘I can only see sun-sparks on the edges of the waves.’
‘They are sea-fairies,’ said the wee creature. ‘You can’t see their forms, of course, and you would not have seen me if I had not been caught in a net made out of Piskey-wool spun by the Small People and meshed by a Wise Woman. Will you please take me down to the sea now? It seems ages since the tide cut me off from my dear ones.’
‘I will this very minute, if you will lend me your eyes and your ears for a night and a day,’ answered Bessie Jane, remembering Old Annis’s injunction.
‘I will do what you ask gladly,’ said the little sea-fairy, ‘for I am very grateful for your kindness in offering to take me back to my friends. When you have put me into the sea a wave will bring to your feet a little red ball, which will contain my ears and my eyes, and which you must take to the Wise Woman, who will keep them until sunrise to-morrow.’
Bessie Jane carried the little sea-fairy very carefully down the sandy beach in the shrimping-net, and when she had put her into the sea, the water all around her broke into white fire, and a soft, sweet sound, like the coos of young pigeons, filled the air; and then, as the brightness enclosed the tiny creature, she disappeared—ears, eyes, and all!
‘Oh, the sea-fairy has forgotten her promise,’ cried Bessie Jane, gazing dolefully at the spot where she had sunk.
As she was speaking, a wavelet broke at her feet, and looking down, she saw a round ball of airy lightness and brightness lying on the sand. It was red as pools when the sun sets, and the child picked it up and looked at it, and through its almost transparent skin she saw a shadow of ears and a glimmer of something blue; and she took it to the Wise Woman, as the fairy had bidden her.