anty; I love you--and you, and you, and you,' cried the
Lamb.

It was a delicious moment. Even the boys thumped their baby brother
joyously on the back.

Then Anthea glanced at mother--and mother's face was a pale sea-green
colour, and she was staring at the Lamb as if she thought he had gone
mad. And, indeed, that was exactly what she did think.

'My Lamb, my precious! Come to mother,' she cried, and jumped up and ran
to the baby.

She was so quick that the invisible children had to leap back, or she
would have felt them; and to feel what you can't see is the worst sort
of ghost-feeling. Mother picked up the Lamb and hurried away from the
pinewood.

'Let's go home,' said Jane, after a miserable silence. 'It feels just
exactly as if mother didn't love us.'

But they couldn't bear to go home till they had seen mother meet another
lady, and knew that she was safe. You cannot leave your mother to go
green in the face in a distant pinewood, far from all human aid, and
then go home on your wishing carpet as though nothing had happened.

When mother seemed safe the children returned to the carpet, and said
'Home'--and home they went.

'I don't care about being invisible myself,' said Cyril, 'at least, not
with my own family. It would be different if you were a prince, or a
bandit, or a burglar.'

And now the thoughts of all four dwelt fondly on the dear greenish face
of mother.

'I wish she hadn't gone away,' said Jane; 'the house is simply beastly
without her.'

'I think we ought to do what she said,' Anthea put in. 'I saw something
in a book the other day about the wishes of the departed being sacred.'

'That means when they've departed farther off,' said Cyril. 'India's
coral or Greenland's icy, don't you know; not Bournemouth. Besides, we
don't know what her wishes are.'

'She SAID'--Anthea was very much inclined to cry--'she said, "Get Indian
things for my bazaar;" but I know she thought we couldn't, and it was
only play.'

'Let's get them all the same,' said Robert. 'We'll go the first thing on
Saturday morning.'

And on Saturday morning, the first thing, they went.

There was no finding the Phoenix, so they sat on the beautiful wishing
carpet, and said--

'We want Indian things for mother's bazaar. Will you please take us
where people will give us heaps of Indian things?'

The docile carpet swirled their senses away, and restored them on the
outskirts of a gleaming white Indian town. They knew