'But how shall we make the wind blow from the south every day in the week?'
At that the fairy smiled and shook her head, and touched each one of them on the heart; and no other answer would she give. So the children were no wiser on that point than before.
Thus time went on steadily, to-morrow always going before to-day, and yesterday invariably bringing up the rear, until a year was past; and what should come round again but Rumpty-Dudget's birthday, the most unlucky day of all the three hundred and sixty five! An hour and twenty seconds before sunset Tom the Cat said to the children:
'Now, you must be very careful, while I am away, to do as I tell you. Do not go out into the garden, do not touch the black ball that lies on the nursery table, and do not jump against the north wind; for if you do——'
But at this moment the hour struck, and Tom the Cat sprang into the air and disappeared like a soap bubble.
For a while the three children remembered what had been said to them; they played quietly in the palace, and did not touch the black ball on the nursery table. But towards sunset it so happened that they were all leaning against the table, with their elbows resting on it, and their heads between their hands. There lay the black ball mysterious and quiet. The longer the children looked at it the more mysterious it appeared. At last Hilda said:
'I wonder where it came from?'
'I wonder what it's made of?' said Harold.
'I wonder why we mustn't touch it?' said Hector.
Then all three looked at it steadily for another minute. Then Hilda exclaimed suddenly: