y, as French
people do, and knelt down and touched the money, and talked very fast
and both together, and the lady embraced all the children three times
each, and called them 'little garden angels,' and then she and the
priest shook each other by both hands again, and talked, and talked, and
talked, faster and more Frenchy than you would have believed possible.
And the children were struck dumb with joy and pleasure.

'Get away NOW,' said the Phoenix softly, breaking in on the radiant
dream.

So the children crept away, and out through the little shrine, and the
lady and the priest were so tearfully, talkatively happy that they never
noticed that the guardian angels had gone.

The 'garden angels' ran down the hill to the lady's little house, where
they had left the carpet on the veranda, and they spread it out and
said 'Home,' and no one saw them disappear, except little Henri, who
had flattened his nose into a white button against the window-glass, and
when he tried to tell his aunt she thought he had been dreaming. So that
was all right.

'It is much the best thing we've done,' said Anthea, when they talked
it over at tea-time. 'In the future we'll only do kind actions with the
carpet.'

'Ahem!' said the Phoenix.

'I beg your pardon?' said Anthea.

'Oh, nothing,' said the bird. 'I was only thinking!'

CHAPTER 7. MEWS FROM PERSIA

When you hear that the four children found themselves at Waterloo
Station quite un-taken-care-of, and with no one to meet them, it may
make you think that their parents were neither kind nor careful. But if
you think this you will be wrong. The fact is, mother arranged with Aunt
Emma that she was to meet the children at Waterloo, when they went back
from their Christmas holiday at Lyndhurst. The train was fixed, but not
the day. Then mother wrote to Aunt Emma, giving her careful instructions
about the day and the hour, and about luggage and cabs and things, and
gave the letter to Robert to post. But the hounds happened to meet near
Rufus Stone that morning, and what is more, on the way to the meet they
met Robert, and Robert met them, and instantly forgot all about posting
Aunt Emma's letter, and never thought of it again until he and
the others had wandered three times up and down the platform at
Waterloo--which makes six in all--and had bumped against old gentlemen,
and stared in the faces of ladies, and been shoved by people in a hurry,
and 'by-your-leaved' by porters wit