He henced as far as the Larch Tree this time. And sat down all over again. And puzzled. And puzzled.
"Go hence, I say, Pitiful Wretch!" insisted our Aunt Esta.
My Mother didn't like Carol to be called a "Pitiful Wretch."—It was because he was dumb, I suppose. When my Mother doesn't like anything it spots her cheek-bones quite red. Her cheek-bones were spotted very red.
"Stop your fussing!" said our Aunt Esta. "And attend to your own business!"
My Mother attended to her own business. The business of her card said "Silver Bird" and "Horse's Hoof."
Even our Aunt Esta looked a bit flabbergasted.
"Oh, dear—oh, dear," said our Aunt Esta. "I certainly am sorry that it was you who happened to draw that one!—And all dressed up in white too as you are! But after all—" she jerked with a great toss of her scraggly wig, "a Game is a Game! And there can be no concessions!"
"No, of course not!" said my Mother. "Lead me to the Slaughter!"
"There is not necessarily any slaughter connected with it," said our Aunt Esta very haughtily. But she hit my Mother only once with her wand.
"Frail Creature," she said. "On the topmost branch of the tallest tree in the world there is a silver bird with a song in his throat that has never been sung! Unless you bring me this bird singing you are hereby doomed to walk with the clatter of a Horse's Hoof!"