'How could it be?'
'That's just what I can't tell you,' said Anthea. 'I haven't got
a futile brain like you and father, to think of ways of explaining
everything.'
Mother laughed.
'My futile brain--or did you mean fertile?--anyway, it feels very
stiff and sore this morning--but I shall be quite all right by and
by. And don't be a silly little pet girl. The fire wasn't your
faults. No; I don't want the egg, dear. I'll go to sleep again,
I think. Don't you worry. And tell cook not to bother me about
meals. You can order what you like for lunch.'
Anthea closed the door very mousily, and instantly went downstairs
and ordered what she liked for lunch. She ordered a pair of
turkeys, a large plum-pudding, cheese-cakes, and almonds and
raisins.
Cook told her to go along, do. And she might as well not have
ordered anything, for when lunch came it was just hashed mutton and
semolina pudding, and cook had forgotten the sippets for the mutton
hash and the semolina pudding was burnt.
When Anthea rejoined the others she found them all plunged in the
gloom where she was herself. For every one knew that the days of
the carpet were now numbered. Indeed, so worn was it that you
could almost have numbered its threads.
So that now, after nearly a month of magic happenings, the time was
at hand when life would have to go on in the dull, ordinary way and
Jane, Robert, Anthea, and Cyril would be just in the same position
as the other children who live in Camden Town, the children whom
these four had so often pitied, and perhaps a little despised.
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