; but worms are slimy, and Beryl always
refused to touch them. Spiders, too, have a way of getting down one's
neck. Perhaps frogs are best of all. Frogs are quite satisfactory; they
always jump when you touch them up. Toads, on the other hand, are sulky;
but their eyes are good to look into.

On this particular morning, Bertram and Beryl, Bobus and Aline met as
usual, but for some reason or other they found it impossible to have a
really good game; whatever they tried appeared flat and tiresome. They
began with cricket and were fairly successful until Bobus hit the ball
into the pond, where it immediately sank. Hitherto it always had
floated. Cricket, therefore, was over. Hide-and-seek took its place and
was going pretty well until Aline fell and hurt her knee. So no more
hide-and-seek. They tried the blue ants, and then the lizards that lived
under the leaves in the violet bed; but met with nothing but
unsociableness. The ants were quite nasty at being interfered with, and
one of them crawled up Beryl's arm.

At last the children made up their minds to try no longer, and instead
they lay on their backs on the grass and grumbled. It was clear that the
world was against them, and what is the good of fighting in the face of
such opposition? Bertram began the grumbling. 'Old Tabby,' he
said,--that being the way in which he spoke of Miss Tabitha, his
governess,--'is a beast. She makes me learn heaps of things which nobody
can ever need to know.'

'And I mayn't have a new doll,' said Beryl.

'And I mayn't stay up later than eight,' said Bobus.

'And I mayn't eat cake until I've had three pieces of horrid bread and
butter,' said Aline.

'It's a shame,' said all.

'Yes,' Bertram went on, 'and my robin wasn't singing this morning.'

'No more was my linnet,' said Beryl.

'No more was my chaffinch,' said Bobus.

'And no more was my blackbird,' said Aline.

'It's a shame,' said Bertram again; 'everything's against us. Except,'
he added, pulling the card from his pocket, 'except the
Amel--Amelior--except the Ameliorator.'

'Why, have you got one too?' Aline asked, producing a card exactly like
it, and as she did so Beryl and Bobus also each showed one. On comparing
notes it seemed that all the cards had come in the night in the same
mysterious way.

The four children looked at each other in silence. They all wanted to
say the same thing, but no one wished to be first. Bertram, as usual,
took the lead: 'Let's go and