Bab Bab 4 · TWO BAZAARS

. TWO BAZAARS

Mother was really a great dear. She was pretty and she was loving, and

most frightfully good when you were ill, and always kind, and almost

always just. That is, she was just when she understood things. But

of course she did not always understand things. No one understands

everything, and mothers are not angels, though a good many of them come

pretty near it. The children knew that mother always WANTED to do what

was best for them, even if she was not clever enough to know exactly

what was the best. That was why all of them, but much more particularly

Anthea, felt rather uncomfortable at keeping the great secret from her

of the wishing carpet and the Phoenix. And Anthea, whose inside mind was

made so that she was able to be much more uncomfortable than the others,

had decided that she MUST tell her mother the truth, however little

likely it was that her mother would believe it.

‘Then I shall have done what’s right,’ said she to the Phoenix; ‘and if

she doesn’t believe me it won’t be my fault--will it?’

‘Not in the least,’ said the golden bird. ‘And she won’t, so you’re

quite safe.’

Anthea chose a time when she was doing her home-lessons--they were

Algebra and Latin, German, English, and Euclid--and she asked her mother

whether she might come and do them in the drawing-room--‘so as to be

quiet,’ she said to her mother; and to herself she said, ‘And that’s not

the real reason. I hope I shan’t grow up a LIAR.’

Mother said, ‘Of course, dearie,’ and Anthea started swimming through

a sea of x’s and y’s and z’s. Mother was sitting at the mahogany bureau

writing letters.

‘Mother dear,’ said Anthea.

‘Yes, love-a-duck,’ said mother.

‘About cook,’ said Anthea. ‘_I_ know where she is.’

‘Do you, dear?’ said mother. ‘Well, I wouldn’t take her back after the

way she has behaved.’

‘It’s not her fault,’ said Anthea. ‘May I tell you about it from the

beginning?’

Mother laid down her pen, and her nice face had a resigned expression.

As you know, a resigned expression always makes you want not to tell

anybody anything.

‘It’s like this,’ said Anthea, in a hurry: ‘that egg, you know, that

came in the carpet; we put it in the fire and it hatched into the

Phoenix, and the carpet was a wishing carpet--and--’

‘A very nice game, darling,’ said mother, taking up her pen. ‘Now do

be quiet. I’ve got a lot of letters to write. I’m going to Bournemouth

to-morrow with the Lamb--and there’s that bazaar.’

Anthea went back to x y z, and mother’s pen scratched busily.

‘But, mother,’ said Anthea, when mother put down the pen to lick an

envelope, ‘the carpet takes us wherever we like--and--’

‘I wish it would take you where you could get a few nice Eastern things

for my bazaar,’ said mother. ‘I promised them, and I’ve no time to go to

Liberty’s now.’

‘It shall,’ said Anthea, ‘but, mother--’

‘Well, dear,’ said mother, a little impatiently, for she had taken up

her pen again.

‘The carpet took us to a place where you couldn’t have whooping-cough,

and the Lamb hasn’t whooped since, and we took cook because she was

so tiresome, and then she would stay and be queen of the savages. They

thought her cap was a crown, and--’

‘Darling one,’ said mother, ‘you know I love to hear the things you make

up--but I am most awfully busy.’

‘But it’s true,’ said Anthea, desperately.

‘You shouldn’t say that, my sweet,’ said mother, gently. And then Anthea

knew it was hopeless.

‘Are you going away for long?’ asked Anthea.

‘I’ve got a cold,’ said mother, ‘and daddy’s anxious about it, and the

Lamb’s cough.’

‘He hasn’t coughed since Saturday,’ the Lamb’s eldest sister

interrupted.

‘I wish I could think so,’ mother replied. ‘And daddy’s got to go to

Scotland. I do hope you’ll be good children.’

‘We will, we will,’ said Anthea, fervently. ‘When’s the bazaar?’

‘On Saturday,’ said mother, ‘at the schools. Oh, don’t talk any more,

there’s a treasure! My head’s going round, and I’ve forgotten how to

spell whooping-cough.’

Mother and the Lamb went away, and father went away, and there was a new

cook who looked so like a frightened rabbit that no one had the heart to

do anything to frighten her any more than seemed natural to her.

The Phoenix begged to be excused. It said it wanted a week’s rest, and

asked that it might not be disturbed. And it hid its golden gleaming

self, and nobody could find it.

So that when Wednesday afternoon brought an unexpected holiday, and

every one decided to go somewhere on the carpet, the journey had to

be undertaken without the Phoenix. They were debarred from any carpet

excursions in the evening by a sudden promise to mother, exacted in the

agitation of parting, that they would not be out after six at night,

except on Saturday, when they were to go to the bazaar, and were pledged

to put on their best clothes, to wash themselves to the uttermost, and

to clean their nails--not with scissors, which are scratchy and bad,

but with flat-sharpened ends of wooden matches, which do no harm to any

one’s nails.

‘Let’s go and see the Lamb,’ said Jane.

But every one was agreed that if they appeared suddenly in Bournemouth

it would frighten mother out of her wits, if not into a fit. So they

sat on the carpet, and thought and thought and thought till they almost

began to squint.

‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘I know. Please carpet, take us somewhere where

we can see the Lamb and mother and no one can see us.’

‘Except the Lamb,’ said Jane, quickly.

And the next moment they found themselves recovering from the

upside-down movement--and there they were sitting on the carpet, and

the carpet was laid out over another thick soft carpet of brown

pine-needles. There were green pine-trees overhead, and a swift clear

little stream was running as fast as ever it could between steep

banks--and there, sitting on the pine-needle carpet, was mother, without

her hat; and the sun was shining brightly, although it was November--and

there was the Lamb, as jolly as jolly and not whooping at all.

‘The carpet’s deceived us,’ said Robert, gloomily; ‘mother will see us

directly she turns her head.’

But the faithful carpet had not deceived them.

Mother turned her dear head and looked straight at them, and DID NOT SEE

THEM!

‘We’re invisible,’ Cyril whispered: ‘what awful larks!’

But to the girls it was not larks at all. It was horrible to have mother

looking straight at them, and her face keeping the same, just as though

they weren’t there.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Jane. ‘Mother never looked at us like that

before. Just as if she didn’t love us--as if we were somebody else’s

children, and not very nice ones either--as if she didn’t care whether

she saw us or not.’

‘It is horrid,’ said Anthea, almost in tears.

But at this moment the Lamb saw them, and plunged towards the carpet,

shrieking, ‘Panty, own Panty--an’ Pussy, an’ Squiggle--an’ Bobs, oh,

oh!’

Anthea caught him and kissed him, so did Jane; they could not help

it--he looked such a darling, with his blue three-cornered hat all on

one side, and his precious face all dirty--quite in the old familiar

way.

‘I love you, Panty; I love you--and you, and you, and you,’ cried the

Lamb.

It was a delicious moment. Even the boys thumped their baby brother

joyously on the back.

Then Anthea glanced at mother--and mother’s face was a pale sea-green

colour, and she was staring at the Lamb as if she thought he had gone

mad. And, indeed, that was exactly what she did think.

‘My Lamb, my precious! Come to mother,’ she cried, and jumped up and ran

to the baby.

She was so quick that the invisible children had to leap back, or she

would have felt them; and to feel what you can’t see is the worst sort

of ghost-feeling. Mother picked up the Lamb and hurried away from the

pinewood.

‘Let’s go home,’ said Jane, after a miserable silence. ‘It feels just

exactly as if mother didn’t love us.’

But they couldn’t bear to go home till they had seen mother meet another

lady, and knew that she was safe. You cannot leave your mother to go

green in the face in a distant pinewood, far from all human aid, and

then go home on your wishing carpet as though nothing had happened.

When mother seemed safe the children returned to the carpet, and said

‘Home’--and home they went.

‘I don’t care about being invisible myself,’ said Cyril, ‘at least, not

with my own family. It would be different if you were a prince, or a

bandit, or a burglar.’

And now the thoughts of all four dwelt fondly on the dear greenish face

of mother.

‘I wish she hadn’t gone away,’ said Jane; ‘the house is simply beastly

without her.’

‘I think we ought to do what she said,’ Anthea put in. ‘I saw something

in a book the other day about the wishes of the departed being sacred.’

‘That means when they’ve departed farther off,’ said Cyril. ‘India’s

coral or Greenland’s icy, don’t you know; not Bournemouth. Besides, we

don’t know what her wishes are.’

‘She SAID’--Anthea was very much inclined to cry--‘she said, “Get Indian

things for my bazaar;” but I know she thought we couldn’t, and it was

only play.’

‘Let’s get them all the same,’ said Robert. ‘We’ll go the first thing on

Saturday morning.’

And on Saturday morning, the first thing, they went.

There was no finding the Phoenix, so they sat on the beautiful wishing

carpet, and said--

‘We want Indian things for mother’s bazaar. Will you please take us

where people will give us heaps of Indian things?’

The docile carpet swirled their senses away, and restored them on the

outskirts of a gleaming white Indian town. They knew it was Indian at

once, by the shape of the domes and roofs; and besides, a man went by on

an elephant, and two English soldiers went along the road, talking like

in Mr Kipling’s books--so after that no one could have any doubt as to

where they were. They rolled up the carpet and Robert carried it, and

they walked bodily into the town.

It was very warm, and once more they had to take off their

London-in-November coats, and carry them on their arms.

The streets were narrow and strange, and the clothes of the people in

the streets were stranger and the talk of the people was strangest of

all.

‘I can’t understand a word,’ said Cyril. ‘How on earth are we to ask for

things for our bazaar?’

‘And they’re poor people, too,’ said Jane; ‘I’m sure they are. What we

want is a rajah or something.’

Robert was beginning to unroll the carpet, but the others stopped him,

imploring him not to waste a wish.

‘We asked the carpet to take us where we could get Indian things for

bazaars,’ said Anthea, ‘and it will.’

Her faith was justified.

Just as she finished speaking a very brown gentleman in a turban came

up to them and bowed deeply. He spoke, and they thrilled to the sound of

English words.

‘My ranee, she think you very nice childs. She asks do you lose

yourselves, and do you desire to sell carpet? She see you from her

palkee. You come see her--yes?’

They followed the stranger, who seemed to have a great many more teeth

in his smile than are usual, and he led them through crooked streets

to the ranee’s palace. I am not going to describe the ranee’s palace,

because I really have never seen the palace of a ranee, and Mr Kipling

has. So you can read about it in his books. But I know exactly what

happened there.

The old ranee sat on a low-cushioned seat, and there were a lot of other

ladies with her--all in trousers and veils, and sparkling with tinsel

and gold and jewels. And the brown, turbaned gentleman stood behind a

sort of carved screen, and interpreted what the children said and what

the queen said. And when the queen asked to buy the carpet, the children

said ‘No.’

‘Why?’ asked the ranee.

And Jane briefly said why, and the interpreter interpreted. The queen

spoke, and then the interpreter said--

‘My mistress says it is a good story, and you tell it all through

without thought of time.’

And they had to. It made a long story, especially as it had all to be

told twice--once by Cyril and once by the interpreter. Cyril rather

enjoyed himself. He warmed to his work, and told the tale of the Phoenix

and the Carpet, and the Lone Tower, and the Queen-Cook, in language that

grew insensibly more and more Arabian Nightsy, and the ranee and her

ladies listened to the interpreter, and rolled about on their fat

cushions with laughter.

When the story was ended she spoke, and the interpreter explained that

she had said, ‘Little one, thou art a heaven-born teller of tales,’ and

she threw him a string of turquoises from round her neck.

‘OH, how lovely!’ cried Jane and Anthea.

Cyril bowed several times, and then cleared his throat and said--

‘Thank her very, very much; but I would much rather she gave me some of

the cheap things in the bazaar. Tell her I want them to sell again, and

give the money to buy clothes for poor people who haven’t any.’

‘Tell him he has my leave to sell my gift and clothe the naked with its

price,’ said the queen, when this was translated.

But Cyril said very firmly, ‘No, thank you. The things have got to be

sold to-day at our bazaar, and no one would buy a turquoise necklace at

an English bazaar. They’d think it was sham, or else they’d want to know

where we got it.’

So then the queen sent out for little pretty things, and her servants

piled the carpet with them.

‘I must needs lend you an elephant to carry them away,’ she said,

laughing.

But Anthea said, ‘If the queen will lend us a comb and let us wash our

hands and faces, she shall see a magic thing. We and the carpet and all

these brass trays and pots and carved things and stuffs and things will

just vanish away like smoke.’

The queen clapped her hands at this idea, and lent the children a

sandal-wood comb inlaid with ivory lotus-flowers. And they washed their

faces and hands in silver basins. Then Cyril made a very polite farewell

speech, and quite suddenly he ended with the words--

‘And I wish we were at the bazaar at our schools.’

And of course they were. And the queen and her ladies were left with

their mouths open, gazing at the bare space on the inlaid marble floor

where the carpet and the children had been.

‘That is magic, if ever magic was!’ said the queen, delighted with the

incident; which, indeed, has given the ladies of that court something to

talk about on wet days ever since.

Cyril’s stories had taken some time, so had the meal of strange sweet

foods that they had had while the little pretty things were being

bought, and the gas in the schoolroom was already lighted. Outside, the

winter dusk was stealing down among the Camden Town houses.

‘I’m glad we got washed in India,’ said Cyril. ‘We should have been

awfully late if we’d had to go home and scrub.’

‘Besides,’ Robert said, ‘it’s much warmer washing in India. I shouldn’t

mind it so much if we lived there.’

The thoughtful carpet had dumped the children down in a dusky space

behind the point where the corners of two stalls met. The floor was

littered with string and brown paper, and baskets and boxes were heaped

along the wall.

The children crept out under a stall covered with all sorts of

table-covers and mats and things, embroidered beautifully by idle

ladies with no real work to do. They got out at the end, displacing a

sideboard-cloth adorned with a tasteful pattern of blue geraniums. The

girls got out unobserved, so did Cyril; but Robert, as he cautiously

emerged, was actually walked on by Mrs Biddle, who kept the stall. Her

large, solid foot stood firmly on the small, solid hand of Robert and

who can blame Robert if he DID yell a little?

A crowd instantly collected. Yells are very unusual at bazaars, and

every one was intensely interested. It was several seconds before the

three free children could make Mrs Biddle understand that what she

was walking on was not a schoolroom floor, or even, as she presently

supposed, a dropped pin-cushion, but the living hand of a suffering

child. When she became aware that she really had hurt him, she grew very

angry indeed. When people have hurt other people by accident, the one

who does the hurting is always much the angriest. I wonder why.

‘I’m very sorry, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Biddle; but she spoke more in anger

than in sorrow. ‘Come out! whatever do you mean by creeping about under

the stalls, like earwigs?’

‘We were looking at the things in the corner.’

‘Such nasty, prying ways,’ said Mrs Biddle, ‘will never make you

successful in life. There’s nothing there but packing and dust.’

‘Oh, isn’t there!’ said Jane. ‘That’s all you know.’

‘Little girl, don’t be rude,’ said Mrs Biddle, flushing violet.

‘She doesn’t mean to be; but there ARE some nice things there, all the

same,’ said Cyril; who suddenly felt how impossible it was to inform the

listening crowd that all the treasures piled on the carpet were mother’s

contributions to the bazaar. No one would believe it; and if they did,

and wrote to thank mother, she would think--well, goodness only knew

what she would think. The other three children felt the same.

‘I should like to see them,’ said a very nice lady, whose friends

had disappointed her, and who hoped that these might be belated

contributions to her poorly furnished stall.

She looked inquiringly at Robert, who said, ‘With pleasure, don’t

mention it,’ and dived back under Mrs Biddle’s stall.

‘I wonder you encourage such behaviour,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘I always

speak my mind, as you know, Miss Peasmarsh; and, I must say, I am

surprised.’ She turned to the crowd. ‘There is no entertainment here,’

she said sternly. ‘A very naughty little boy has accidentally hurt

himself, but only slightly. Will you please disperse? It will only

encourage him in naughtiness if he finds himself the centre of

attraction.’

The crowd slowly dispersed. Anthea, speechless with fury, heard a nice

curate say, ‘Poor little beggar!’ and loved the curate at once and for

ever.

Then Robert wriggled out from under the stall with some Benares brass

and some inlaid sandalwood boxes.

‘Liberty!’ cried Miss Peasmarsh. ‘Then Charles has not forgotten, after

all.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Mrs Biddle, with fierce politeness, ‘these objects are

deposited behind MY stall. Some unknown donor who does good by stealth,

and would blush if he could hear you claim the things. Of course they

are for me.’

‘My stall touches yours at the corner,’ said poor Miss Peasmarsh,

timidly, ‘and my cousin did promise--’

The children sidled away from the unequal contest and mingled with

the crowd. Their feelings were too deep for words--till at last Robert

said--

‘That stiff-starched PIG!’

‘And after all our trouble! I’m hoarse with gassing to that trousered

lady in India.’

‘The pig-lady’s very, very nasty,’ said Jane.

It was Anthea who said, in a hurried undertone, ‘She isn’t very nice,

and Miss Peasmarsh is pretty and nice too. Who’s got a pencil?’

It was a long crawl, under three stalls, but Anthea did it. A large

piece of pale blue paper lay among the rubbish in the corner.

She folded it to a square and wrote upon it, licking the pencil at every

word to make it mark quite blackly: ‘All these Indian things are for

pretty, nice Miss Peasmarsh’s stall.’ She thought of adding, ‘There is

nothing for Mrs Biddle;’ but she saw that this might lead to suspicion,

so she wrote hastily: ‘From an unknown donna,’ and crept back among the

boards and trestles to join the others.

So that when Mrs Biddle appealed to the bazaar committee, and the corner

of the stall was lifted and shifted, so that stout clergymen and heavy

ladies could get to the corner without creeping under stalls, the blue

paper was discovered, and all the splendid, shining Indian things were

given over to Miss Peasmarsh, and she sold them all, and got thirty-five

pounds for them.

‘I don’t understand about that blue paper,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘It looks

to me like the work of a lunatic. And saying you were nice and pretty!

It’s not the work of a sane person.’

Anthea and Jane begged Miss Peasmarsh to let them help her to sell the

things, because it was their brother who had announced the good news

that the things had come. Miss Peasmarsh was very willing, for now her

stall, that had been SO neglected, was surrounded by people who wanted

to buy, and she was glad to be helped. The children noted that Mrs

Biddle had not more to do in the way of selling than she could manage

quite well. I hope they were not glad--for you should forgive your

enemies, even if they walk on your hands and then say it is all your

naughty fault. But I am afraid they were not so sorry as they ought to

have been.

It took some time to arrange the things on the stall. The carpet was

spread over it, and the dark colours showed up the brass and silver and

ivory things. It was a happy and busy afternoon, and when Miss Peasmarsh

and the girls had sold every single one of the little pretty things from

the Indian bazaar, far, far away, Anthea and Jane went off with the

boys to fish in the fishpond, and dive into the bran-pie, and hear the

cardboard band, and the phonograph, and the chorus of singing birds that

was done behind a screen with glass tubes and glasses of water.

They had a beautiful tea, suddenly presented to them by the nice curate,

and Miss Peasmarsh joined them before they had had more than three cakes

each. It was a merry party, and the curate was extremely pleasant to

every one, ‘even to Miss Peasmarsh,’ as Jane said afterwards.

‘We ought to get back to the stall,’ said Anthea, when no one could

possibly eat any more, and the curate was talking in a low voice to Miss

Peas marsh about ‘after Easter’.

‘There’s nothing to go back for,’ said Miss Peasmarsh gaily; ‘thanks to

you dear children we’ve sold everything.’

‘There--there’s the carpet,’ said Cyril.

‘Oh,’ said Miss Peasmarsh, radiantly, ‘don’t bother about the carpet.

I’ve sold even that. Mrs Biddle gave me ten shillings for it. She said

it would do for her servant’s bedroom.’

‘Why,’ said Jane, ‘her servants don’t HAVE carpets. We had cook from

her, and she told us so.’

‘No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, if YOU please,’ said the curate,

cheerfully; and Miss Peasmarsh laughed, and looked at him as though she

had never dreamed that any one COULD be so amusing. But the others were

struck dumb. How could they say, ‘The carpet is ours!’ For who brings

carpets to bazaars?

The children were now thoroughly wretched. But I am glad to say that

their wretchedness did not make them forget their manners, as it does

sometimes, even with grown-up people, who ought to know ever so much

better.

They said, ‘Thank you very much for the jolly tea,’ and ‘Thanks for

being so jolly,’ and ‘Thanks awfully for giving us such a jolly time;’

for the curate had stood fish-ponds, and bran-pies, and phonographs, and

the chorus of singing birds, and had stood them like a man. The girls

hugged Miss Peasmarsh, and as they went away they heard the curate say--

‘Jolly little kids, yes, but what about--you will let it be directly

after Easter. Ah, do say you will--’

And Jane ran back and said, before Anthea could drag her away, ‘What are

you going to do after Easter?’

Miss Peasmarsh smiled and looked very pretty indeed. And the curate

said--

‘I hope I am going to take a trip to the Fortunate Islands.’

‘I wish we could take you on the wishing carpet,’ said Jane.

‘Thank you,’ said the curate, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t wait for that. I

must go to the Fortunate Islands before they make me a bishop. I should

have no time afterwards.’

‘I’ve always thought I should marry a bishop,’ said Jane: ‘his aprons

would come in so useful. Wouldn’t YOU like to marry a bishop, Miss

Peasmarsh?’

It was then that they dragged her away.

As it was Robert’s hand that Mrs Biddle had walked on, it was decided

that he had better not recall the incident to her mind, and so make

her angry again. Anthea and Jane had helped to sell things at the rival

stall, so they were not likely to be popular.

A hasty council of four decided that Mrs Biddle would hate Cyril less

than she would hate the others, so the others mingled with the crowd,

and it was he who said to her--

‘Mrs Biddle, WE meant to have that carpet. Would you sell it to us? We

would give you--’

‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘Go away, little boy.’

There was that in her tone which showed Cyril, all too plainly, the

hopelessness of persuasion. He found the others and said--

‘It’s no use; she’s like a lioness robbed of its puppies. We must watch

where it goes--and--Anthea, I don’t care what you say. It’s our own

carpet. It wouldn’t be burglary. It would be a sort of forlorn hope

rescue party--heroic and daring and dashing, and not wrong at all.’

The children still wandered among the gay crowd--but there was no

pleasure there for them any more. The chorus of singing birds sounded

just like glass tubes being blown through water, and the phonograph

simply made a horrid noise, so that you could hardly hear yourself

speak. And the people were buying things they couldn’t possibly want,

and it all seemed very stupid. And Mrs Biddle had bought the wishing

carpet for ten shillings. And the whole of life was sad and grey and

dusty, and smelt of slight gas escapes, and hot people, and cake and

crumbs, and all the children were very tired indeed.

They found a corner within sight of the carpet, and there they waited

miserably, till it was far beyond their proper bedtime. And when it was

ten the people who had bought things went away, but the people who had

been selling stayed to count up their money.

‘And to jaw about it,’ said Robert. ‘I’ll never go to another bazaar as

long as ever I live. My hand is swollen as big as a pudding. I expect

the nails in her horrible boots were poisoned.’

Just then some one who seemed to have a right to interfere said--

‘Everything is over now; you had better go home.’

So they went. And then they waited on the pavement under the gas lamp,

where ragged children had been standing all the evening to listen to

the band, and their feet slipped about in the greasy mud till Mrs Biddle

came out and was driven away in a cab with the many things she hadn’t

sold, and the few things she had bought--among others the carpet. The

other stall-holders left their things at the school till Monday morning,

but Mrs Biddle was afraid some one would steal some of them, so she took

them in a cab.

The children, now too desperate to care for mud or appearances, hung

on behind the cab till it reached Mrs Biddle’s house. When she and the

carpet had gone in and the door was shut Anthea said--

‘Don’t let’s burgle--I mean do daring and dashing rescue acts--till

we’ve given her a chance. Let’s ring and ask to see her.’

The others hated to do this, but at last they agreed, on condition that

Anthea would not make any silly fuss about the burglary afterwards, if

it really had to come to that.

So they knocked and rang, and a scared-looking parlourmaid opened the

front door. While they were asking for Mrs Biddle they saw her. She was

in the dining-room, and she had already pushed back the table and spread

out the carpet to see how it looked on the floor.

‘I knew she didn’t want it for her servants’ bedroom,’ Jane muttered.

Anthea walked straight past the uncomfortable parlourmaid, and the

others followed her. Mrs Biddle had her back to them, and was smoothing

down the carpet with the same boot that had trampled on the hand

of Robert. So that they were all in the room, and Cyril, with great

presence of mind, had shut the room door before she saw them.

‘Who is it, Jane?’ she asked in a sour voice; and then turning suddenly,

she saw who it was. Once more her face grew violet--a deep, dark violet.

‘You wicked daring little things!’ she cried, ‘how dare you come here?

At this time of night, too. Be off, or I’ll send for the police.’

‘Don’t be angry,’ said Anthea, soothingly, ‘we only wanted to ask you

to let us have the carpet. We have quite twelve shillings between us,

and--’

‘How DARE you?’ cried Mrs Biddle, and her voice shook with angriness.

‘You do look horrid,’ said Jane suddenly.

Mrs Biddle actually stamped that booted foot of hers. ‘You rude,

barefaced child!’ she said.

Anthea almost shook Jane; but Jane pushed forward in spite of her.

‘It really IS our nursery carpet,’ she said, ‘you ask ANY ONE if it

isn’t.’

‘Let’s wish ourselves home,’ said Cyril in a whisper.

‘No go,’ Robert whispered back, ‘she’d be there too, and raving mad as

likely as not. Horrid thing, I hate her!’

‘I wish Mrs Biddle was in an angelic good temper,’ cried Anthea,

suddenly. ‘It’s worth trying,’ she said to herself.

Mrs Biddle’s face grew from purple to violet, and from violet to mauve,

and from mauve to pink. Then she smiled quite a jolly smile.

‘Why, so I am!’ she said, ‘what a funny idea! Why shouldn’t I be in a

good temper, my dears.’

Once more the carpet had done its work, and not on Mrs Biddle alone. The

children felt suddenly good and happy.

‘You’re a jolly good sort,’ said Cyril. ‘I see that now. I’m sorry we

vexed you at the bazaar to-day.’

‘Not another word,’ said the changed Mrs Biddle. ‘Of course you shall

have the carpet, my dears, if you’ve taken such a fancy to it. No, no; I

won’t have more than the ten shillings I paid.’

‘It does seem hard to ask you for it after you bought it at the bazaar,’

said Anthea; ‘but it really IS our nursery carpet. It got to the bazaar

by mistake, with some other things.’

‘Did it really, now? How vexing!’ said Mrs Biddle, kindly. ‘Well, my

dears, I can very well give the extra ten shillings; so you take your

carpet and we’ll say no more about it. Have a piece of cake before you

go! I’m so sorry I stepped on your hand, my boy. Is it all right now?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Robert. ‘I say, you ARE good.’

‘Not at all,’ said Mrs Biddle, heartily. ‘I’m delighted to be able to

give any little pleasure to you dear children.’

And she helped them to roll up the carpet, and the boys carried it away

between them.

‘You ARE a dear,’ said Anthea, and she and Mrs Biddle kissed each other

heartily.

‘WELL!’ said Cyril as they went along the street.

‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘and the odd part is that you feel just as if it

was REAL--her being so jolly, I mean--and not only the carpet making her

nice.’

‘Perhaps it IS real,’ said Anthea, ‘only it was covered up with

crossness and tiredness and things, and the carpet took them away.’

‘I hope it’ll keep them away,’ said Jane; ‘she isn’t ugly at all when

she laughs.’

The carpet has done many wonders in its day; but the case of Mrs

Biddle is, I think, the most wonderful. For from that day she was never

anything like so disagreeable as she was before, and she sent a lovely

silver tea-pot and a kind letter to Miss Peasmarsh when the pretty lady

married the nice curate; just after Easter it was, and they went to

Italy for their honeymoon.