Five Children and It | Page 9

not stone, and then she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.
"Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!" she added, so that they might not feel jealous.
When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them about the strange children.
"A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent."
"I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be to try to explain things to Martha.
"And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little things, you?"
"In the lane."
"Why didn't you come home hours ago?"
"We couldn't because of them," said Anthea.
"Who?"
"The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper--we are so hungry."
"Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with strange children--down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind, if you see them again, don't you speak to them--not one word nor so much as a look--but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their beauty for them!"
"If ever we do see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones--
"And we'll take jolly good care we never do see them again."
And they never have.
CHAPTER II
GOLDEN GUINEAS
Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which she was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day without an umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy because of the rain, and were all growling gloomily. When she awoke, both the growling and the rain went on just the same. The growling was the heavy regular breathing of her sister Jane, who had a slight cold and was still asleep. The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face from the wet corner of a bath-towel out of which her brother Robert was gently squeezing the water, to wake her up, as he now explained.
"Oh, drop it!" she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not a brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds, booby-traps, original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and the other little accomplishments which make home happy.
[Illustration: The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face]
"I had such a funny dream," Anthea began.
"So did I," said Jane, wakening suddenly and without warning. "I dreamed we found a Sand-fairy in the gravel-pits, and it said it was a Sammyadd, and we might have a new wish every day, and"----
"But that's what I dreamed," said Robert; "I was just going to tell you,--and we had the first wish directly it said so. And I dreamed you girls were donkeys enough to ask for us all to be beautiful as day, and we jolly well were, and it was perfectly beastly."
"But can different people all dream the same thing?" said Anthea, sitting up in bed, "because I dreamed all that as well as about the Zoo and the rain; and Baby didn't know us in my dream, and the servants shut us out of the house because the radiantness of our beauty was such a complete disguise, and"----
The voice of the eldest brother sounded from across the landing.
"Come on, Robert," it said, "you'll be late for breakfast again--unless you mean to shirk your bath as you did on Tuesday."
"I say, come here a second," Robert replied; "I didn't shirk it; I had it after brekker in father's dressing-room because ours was emptied away."
Cyril appeared in the doorway, partially clothed.
"Look here," said Anthea, "we've all had such an odd dream. We've all dreamed we found a Sand-fairy."
Her voice died away before Cyril's contemptuous glance.
"Dream?" he said; "you little sillies, it's true. I tell you it all happened. That's why I'm so keen on being down early. We'll go up there directly after brekker, and have another wish. Only we'll make up our minds, solid, before we go, what it is we do want, and no one must ask for anything unless the others agree first. No more peerless beauties for this child, thank you. Not if I know it!"
The other three dressed, with their mouths open. If all that dream about the Sand-fairy was real, this real dressing seemed very like a dream, the girls thought. Jane felt that Cyril was right, but Anthea was not sure, till