and so we might stay
there for ever, and then what about our sorrowing relatives who aren't
in the dreams at all?'

But all the curate could now say was, 'Oh, my head!'

And Jane and Robert felt quite ill with helplessness and hopelessness. A
really conscientious curate is a very difficult thing to manage.

And then, just as the hopelessness and the helplessness were getting to
be almost more than they could bear, the two children suddenly felt that
extraordinary shrinking feeling that you always have when you are just
going to vanish. And the next moment they had vanished, and the Reverend
Septimus was left alone with his aunts.

'I knew it was a dream,' he cried, wildly. 'I've had something like
it before. Did you dream it too, Aunt Selina, and you, Aunt Amelia? I
dreamed that you did, you know.'

Aunt Selina looked at him and then at Aunt Amelia. Then she said
boldly--

'What do you mean? WE haven't been dreaming anything. You must have
dropped off in your chair.'

The curate heaved a sigh of relief.

'Oh, if it's only _I_,' he said; 'if we'd all dreamed it I could never
have believed it, never!'

Afterwards Aunt Selina said to the other aunt--

'Yes, I know it was an untruth, and I shall doubtless be punished for it
in due course. But I could see the poor dear fellow's brain giving way
before my very eyes. He couldn't have stood the strain of three dreams.
It WAS odd, wasn't it? All three of us dreaming the same thing at the
same moment. We must never tell dear Seppy. But I shall send an account
of it to the Psychical Society, with stars instead of names, you know.'

And she did. And you can read all about it in one of the society's fat
Blue-books.

Of course, you understand what had happened? The intelligent Phoenix had
simply gone straight off to the Psammead, and had wished Robert and Jane
at home. And, of course, they were at home at once. Cyril and Anthea had
not half finished mending the carpet.

When the joyful emotions of reunion had calmed down a little, they
all went out and spent what was left of Uncle Reginald's sovereign in
presents for mother. They bought her a pink silk handkerchief, a pair of
blue and white vases, a bottle of scent, a packet of Christmas candles,
and a cake of soap shaped and coloured like a tomato, and one that was
so like an orange that almost any one you had given it to would have
tried to peel it--if they liked oranges, of course. Also they bought a
cake with ici