“What’s that?” asked Ruth.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just what Jim says when he means a little bit of a time.”
“Where would we go, Rose?”
“Perhaps to a big school, where lots and lots of girls were playing together. Or to a fairy island, where all the nicest boys and girls in the world lived, and went on picnics and had parties. Or maybe we’d go to a nice big house where there were two other girls as old as we are, and they were wishing, like us, that they had some little friends to play with—that would be nicest of all, I think.”
Ruth sighed deliciously, picturing the joy of it.
“I don’t suppose you can possibly find such a carpet,” she murmured.
“N-no—I suppose they are all in Persia or Arabia. Or perhaps they are all worn out by this time.”
The fire shot up a great plume of sparks as one of the logs fell apart, and then died down. The room was dark, for the storm had brought night on earlier than it should have come.
“Well,” said a small, clear voice right beside the girls, “I don’t know anything about wishing carpets; but I can’t see why you don’t go through the Magic Gate. If you go through that, you reach places quite as interesting as those you are talking about—and as for children! Why, it leads to thousands and thousands of them.”
Rose was too surprised to breathe, and Ruth’s eyes opened and opened.