et and stood on the linoleum), 'this
carpet never flinched. It did what you asked, but the wear and tear must
have been awful. And then last night--I don't blame you about the cats
and the rats, for those were its own choice; but what carpet could stand
a heavy cow hanging on to it at one corner?'

'I should think the cats and rats were worse,' said Robert, 'look at all
their claws.'

'Yes,' said the bird, 'eleven thousand nine hundred and forty of them--I
daresay you noticed? I should be surprised if these had not left their
mark.'

'Good gracious,' said Jane, sitting down suddenly on the floor, and
patting the edge of the carpet softly; 'do you mean it's WEARING OUT?'

'Its life with you has not been a luxurious one,' said the Phoenix.

'French mud twice. Sand of sunny shores twice. Soaking in southern seas
once. India once. Goodness knows where in Persia once. Musk-rat-land
once. And once, wherever the cow came from. Hold your carpet up to the
light, and with cautious tenderness, if YOU please.'

With cautious tenderness the boys held the carpet up to the light; the
girls looked, and a shiver of regret ran through them as they saw how
those eleven thoousand nine hundred and forty claws had run through the
carpet. It was full of little holes: there were some large ones, and
more than one thin place. At one corner a strip of it was torn, and hung
forlornly.

'We must mend it,' said Anthea; 'never mind about my stockings. I can
sew them up in lumps with sewing cotton if there's no time to do them
properly. I know it's awful and no girl would who respected herself,
and all that; but the poor dear carpet's more important than my silly
stockings. Let's go out now this very minute.'

So out they all went, and bought wool to mend the carpet; but there
is no shop in Camden Town where you can buy wishing-wool, no, nor in
Kentish Town either. However, ordinary Scotch heather-mixture fingering
seemed good enough, and this they bought, and all that day Jane and
Anthea darned and darned and darned. The boys went out for a walk in
the afternoon, and the gentle Phoenix paced up and down the table--for
exercise, as it said--and talked to the industrious girls about their
carpet.

'It is not an ordinary, ignorant, innocent carpet from Kidderminster,'
it said, 'it is a carpet with a past--a Persian past. Do you know that
in happier years, when that carpet was the property of caliphs, viziers,
kings, and sultans, it never lay