elightful, and towels
and baths aren't THAT, however good they may be for you. Let it go. I
suppose it won't give us the slip,' he added, pushing back his chair and
standing up.

'Hush!' said the Phoenix; 'how can you? Don't trample on its feelings
just because it's only a carpet.'

'But how can it do it--unless one of us is on it to do the wishing?'
asked Robert. He spoke with a rising hope that it MIGHT be necessary for
one to go and why not Robert? But the Phoenix quickly threw cold water
on his new-born dream.

'Why, you just write your wish on a paper, and pin it on the carpet.'

So a leaf was torn from Anthea's arithmetic book, and on it Cyril wrote
in large round-hand the following:

We wish you to go to your dear native home, and bring back the most
beautiful and delightful productions of it you can--and not to be gone
long, please.

(Signed) CYRIL.
ROBERT.
ANTHEA.
JANE.

Then the paper was laid on the carpet.

'Writing down, please,' said the Phoenix; 'the carpet can't read a paper
whose back is turned to it, any more than you can.'

It was pinned fast, and the table and chairs having been moved, the
carpet simply and suddenly vanished, rather like a patch of water on a
hearth under a fierce fire. The edges got smaller and smaller, and then
it disappeared from sight.

'It may take it some time to collect the beautiful and delightful
things,' said the Phoenix. 'I should wash up--I mean wash down.'

So they did. There was plenty of hot water left in the kettle, and every
one helped--even the Phoenix, who took up cups by their handles with its
clever claws and dipped them in the hot water, and then stood them on
the table ready for Anthea to dry them. But the bird was rather slow,
because, as it said, though it was not above any sort of honest work,
messing about with dish-water was not exactly what it had been brought
up to. Everything was nicely washed up, and dried, and put in its proper
place, and the dish-cloth washed and hung on the edge of the copper
to dry, and the tea-cloth was hung on the line that goes across the
scullery. (If you are a duchess's child, or a king's, or a person of
high social position's child, you will perhaps not know the difference
between a dish-cloth and a tea-cloth; but in that case your nurse has
been better instructed than you, and she will tell you al