'We shall be just like them,' Cyril said.
'Except,' said Robert, 'that we shall have more things to remember
and be sorry we haven't got.'
'Mother's going to send away the carpet as soon as she's well
enough to see about that coconut matting. Fancy us with
coconut-matting--us! And we've walked under live coconut-trees on
the island where you can't have whooping-cough.'
'Pretty island,' said the Lamb; 'paint-box sands and sea all shiny
sparkly.'
His brothers and sisters had often wondered whether he remembered
that island. Now they knew that he did.
'Yes,' said Cyril; 'no more cheap return trips by carpet for
us--that's a dead cert.'
They were all talking about the carpet, but what they were all
thinking about was the Phoenix.
The golden bird had been so kind, so friendly, so polite, so
instructive--and now it had set fire to a theatre and made mother
ill.
Nobody blamed the bird. It had acted in a perfectly natural
manner. But every one saw that it must not be asked to prolong its
visit. Indeed, in plain English it must be asked to go!
The four children felt like base spies and treacherous friends; and
each in its mind was saying who ought not to be the one to tell the
Phoenix that there could no longer be a place for it in that happy
home in Camden Town.
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