"If I only could have thought what it was best to do!" he said, again and again.
"I know what I should have done," said Selma, the only daughter of the poor couple, a girl about eleven years old.
"What?" asked Jules, eagerly.
"I should have just snatched the little fellow up, and rubbed his feet and wrapped them in my shawl until they were warm," said she.
"But he would not have liked that," said Jules. "He was an old man and very particular."
"I would not care," said Selma; "I wouldn't let such a little fellow stand suffering in the snow, and I wouldn't care how old he was."
"I hope you'll never meet any of these fairy-people," said Jules. "You'd drive them out of the country with your roughness, and we might all whistle for our fortunes."
Selma laughed and said no more about it.
Every day after that, Jules looked for the dwarf-man, but he did not see him again. Selma looked for him, too, for her curiosity had been much excited; but as she was not allowed to go to the woods in the winter, of course she never saw him.
But, at last, summer came; and, one day, as she was walking by a little stream which ran through the woods, whom should she see, sitting on the bank, but the dwarf-man! She knew him in an instant, from Jules' descriptions. He was busily engaged in fishing, but he did not fish like any one else in the world. He had a short pole, which was floating in the water, and in his hand he held a string which was fastened to one end of the pole.