t to try
to get them out.

We had roasted one each for Sarah, and for Cook, and for Nurse, and for
Father, and of course the biggest of all for Mother.

We thought she might enjoy it when she got better. And they were all
done, and there were only two left besides what we had eaten and lost.

So we put them together on the bar to roast, and Rupert said:

"One for you, and one for me. Yours is the light one, and mine is the
dark one."

And I said:

"Yes, and let us do them as Sarah did with two of them, and try if they
will keep together till they are properly done, and then it will be as
if we kept good friends and loved each other always."

So that was what Rupert called the "anxietious" part, because, you know,
one of them might have flown into the fire before the other was roasted,
and we were so excited about it that I believe we should have cried.

But they were the nicest chestnuts of all the plateful, and that was the
nicest thing of all that long day that had so many nasty ones in it.

For the dark chestnut and the light one kept together all the time, and
split quite quietly and comfortably, and began to have a lovely smell,
and then we thought it was fair to rake them off.

"Those chestnuts were welly fond of each other," said Rupert, in his
solemnest way, while they were cooling in the fender. "Like you and me,
Nella."

[Illustration: "Rupert knelt down on the rug."]

"And so we'll promise on our word-of-honours to be friends like them
and love each other for always and always," I said.

And we held each other's hands, and when the chestnuts were cooled and
peeled, ate them up, and enjoyed them most of all the chestnuts.

But after we had made that play last as long as we could, and it grew
later and later, it began to seem miserabler than ever.

And nobody came to take us to bed, although it did feel so dreadfully
like bedtime, and nobody brought us any bread-and-milk, and chestnuts do
not really make a good supper, even if you have roasted them yourself.
And I tried to tell Rupert "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," but he grew
cross because I couldn't tell it as well as Mother.

So I said:

"Well, let us lie down here on the rug, and perhaps if we make believe,
it will seem like going to bed."

But Rupert said, how could he go to bed without saying his prayers, and
he was so tired and cross that I said:

"Well, you say yours, and I'll hear them."

And so Rupert knelt down on the rug, and