Here natural and supernatural seem one and the same),
the caterpillar has undergone his transformation and emerging spreads
his wings and forthwith takes his flight a full-grown butterfly with
all its senses and faculties complete.
Walking on the sea front at Worthing one late afternoon in late
November, I sat down at one end of a seat in a shelter, the other end
being occupied by a lady in black, and between us, drawn close up to
the seat, was a perambulator in which a little girl was seated. She
looked at me, as little girls always do, with that question - What are
you? in her large grey intelligent eyes. The expression tempted me to
address her, and I said I hoped she was quite well.
"O yes," she returned readily. "I am quite well, thank you."
"And may I know how old you are?"
"Yes, I am just three years old."
I should have thought, I said, that as she looked a strong healthy
child she would have been able to walk and run about at the age of
three.
She replied that she could walk and run as well as any child, and that
she had her pram just to sit and rest in when tired of walking.
Then, after apologising for putting so many questions to her, I asked
her if she could tell me her name.
"My name," she said, "is Rose Mary Catherine Maude Caversham," or some
such name.
"Oh!" exclaimed the lady in black, opening her lips for the first time,
and speaking sharply. "You must not say all those names! It is enough
to say your name is Rose."
The child turned and looked at her, studying her face, and then with
heightened colour and with something like indignation in her tone, she
replied: "That is my name! Why should I not tell it when I am
asked?"
The lady said nothing, and the child turned her face to me again.
I said it was a very pretty name and I had been pleased to hear it, and
glad she told it to me without leaving anything out.
Silence still on the part of the lady.
"I think," I resumed, "that you are a rather wonderful child; - have
they taught you the ABC?"
"Oh no, they don't teach me things like that - I pick all that up."
"And one and one make two - do you pick that up as well?"
"Yes, I pick that up as well."
"Then," said I, recollecting Humpty Dumpty's question in arithmetic to
Alice, "how much is one-an'-one-an'-one-an'-one-an'-one-an'-one?" -
speaking it as it should be spoken, very rapidly.
