“Oh,” said the learned gentleman, “this is a good dream. I wish the child might stay in the dream.”
The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen’s future was assured. She had found someone to want her.
“If only all the children that no one wants,” began the learned gentleman—but the woman interrupted. She came towards them.
“Welcome, all!” she cried. “I am the Queen, and my child tells me that you have befriended her; and this I well believe, looking on your faces. Your garb is strange, but faces I can read. The child is bewitched, I see that well, but in this she speaks truth. Is it not so?”
The children said it wasn’t worth mentioning.
I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses lavished on the children and the learned gentleman by those ancient Britons. You would have thought, to see them, that a child was something to make a fuss about, not a bit of rubbish to be hustled about the streets and hidden away in the Workhouse. It wasn’t as grand as the entertainment at Babylon, but somehow it was more satisfying.
“I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,” said the learned gentleman. “I never dreamed such dreams before I knew you.”
It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the Britons had spread a heap Of dried fern for them to sleep on, that Cyril spoke.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve made it all right for Imogen, and had a jolly good time. I vote we get home again before the fighting begins.”
“What fighting?” asked Jane sleepily.