‘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—’