t's rather long, isn't it?' said Jane, jumping the Lamb on her knee.

'Couldn't you make a short English version, like Tate and Brady?'

'Oh, come along, do,' said Robert, holding out his hand. 'Come along,
good old Phoenix.'

'Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix,' it corrected shyly.

'Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix, then. Come along, come along,' said Robert,
impatiently, with his hand still held out.

The Phoenix fluttered at once on to his wrist.

'This amiable youth,' it said to the others, 'has miraculously been able
to put the whole meaning of the seven thousand lines of Greek invocation
into one English hexameter--a little misplaced some of the words--but--

'Oh, come along, come along, good old beautiful Phoenix!'

'Not perfect, I admit--but not bad for a boy of his age.'

'Well, now then,' said Robert, stepping back on to the carpet with the
golden Phoenix on his wrist.

'You look like the king's falconer,' said Jane, sitting down on the
carpet with the baby on her lap.

Robert tried to go on looking like it. Cyril and Anthea stood on the
carpet.

'We shall have to get back before dinner,' said Cyril, 'or cook will
blow the gaff.'

'She hasn't sneaked since Sunday,' said Anthea.

'She--' Robert was beginning, when the door burst open and the cook,
fierce and furious, came in like a whirlwind and stood on the corner of
the carpet, with a broken basin in one hand and a threat in the other,
which was clenched.

'Look 'ere!' she cried, 'my only basin; and what the powers am I to
make the beefsteak and kidney pudding in that your ma ordered for your
dinners? You don't deserve no dinners, so yer don't.'

'I'm awfully sorry, cook,' said Anthea gently; 'it was my fault, and
I forgot to tell you about it. It got broken when we were telling our
fortunes with melted lead, you know, and I meant to tell you.'

'Meant to tell me,' replied the cook; she was red with anger, and really
I don't wonder--'meant to tell! Well, _I_ mean to tell, too. I've held
my tongue this week through, because the missus she said to me quiet
like, "We mustn't expect old heads on young shoulders," but now I shan't
hold it no longer. There was the soap you put in our pudding, and me and
Eliza never so much as breathed it to your ma--though well we might--and
the saucepan, and the fish-slice, and--My gracious cats alive! what 'ave
you got that blessed child dressed up in his outdoors for?'

'We aren't going to take him out,' said Anthea; 'a