y-mirrored
restaurant where they ate dinner, with father in evening dress, with
a very shiny white shirt-front, and mother looking lovely in her grey
evening dress, that changes into pink and green when she moves. Robert
pretended that he was too cold to take off his great-coat, and so sat
sweltering through what would otherwise have been a most thrilling meal.
He felt that he was a blot on the smart beauty of the family, and he
hoped the Phoenix knew what he was suffering for its sake. Of course,
we are all pleased to suffer for the sake of others, but we like them
to know it unless we are the very best and noblest kind of people, and
Robert was just ordinary.

Father was full of jokes and fun, and every one laughed all the time,
even with their mouths full, which is not manners. Robert thought father
would not have been quite so funny about his keeping his over-coat on if
father had known all the truth. And there Robert was probably right.

When dinner was finished to the last grape and the last paddle in the
finger glasses--for it was a really truly grown-up dinner--the children
were taken to the theatre, guided to a box close to the stage, and left.

Father's parting words were: 'Now, don't you stir out of this box,
whatever you do. I shall be back before the end of the play. Be good
and you will be happy. Is this zone torrid enough for the abandonment of
great-coats, Bobs? No? Well, then, I should say you were sickening for
something--mumps or measles or thrush or teething. Goodbye.'

He went, and Robert was at last able to remove his coat, mop his
perspiring brow, and release the crushed and dishevelled Phoenix. Robert
had to arrange his damp hair at the looking-glass at the back of the
box, and the Phoenix had to preen its disordered feathers for some time
before either of them was fit to be seen.

They were very, very early. When the lights went up fully, the Phoenix,
balancing itself on the gilded back of a chair, swayed in ecstasy.

'How fair a scene is this!' it murmured; 'how far fairer than my temple!
Or have I guessed aright? Have you brought me hither to lift up my heart
with emotions of joyous surprise? Tell me, my Robert, is it not that
this, THIS is my true temple, and the other was but a humble shrine
frequented by outcasts?'

'I don't know about outcasts,' said Robert, 'but you can call this your
temple if you like. Hush! the music is beginning.'

I am not going to tell you about the play. As