Robert, 'if you mean that it's instead of it.'

'And the magic web?' inquired the Phoenix, with sudden eagerness.

'It's the rag-and-bottle man's day to-morrow,' said Anthea, in a low
voice; 'he will take it away.'

The Phoenix fluttered up to its favourite perch on the chair-back.

'Hear me!' it cried, 'oh youthful children of men, and restrain your
tears of misery and despair, for what must be must be, and I would not
remember you, thousands of years hence, as base ingrates and crawling
worms compact of low selfishness.'

'I should hope not, indeed,' said Cyril.

'Weep not,' the bird went on; 'I really do beg that you won't weep.

I will not seek to break the news to you gently. Let the blow fall at
once. The time has come when I must leave you.'

All four children breathed forth a long sigh of relief.

'We needn't have bothered so about how to break the news to it,'
whispered Cyril.

'Ah, sigh not so,' said the bird, gently. 'All meetings end in partings.
I must leave you. I have sought to prepare you for this. Ah, do not give
way!'

'Must you really go--so soon?' murmured Anthea. It was what she had
often heard her mother say to calling ladies in the afternoon.

'I must, really; thank you so much, dear,' replied the bird, just as
though it had been one of the ladies.

'I am weary,' it went on. 'I desire to rest--after all the happenings
of this last moon I do desire really to rest, and I ask of you one last
boon.'

'Any little thing we can do,' said Robert.

Now that it had really come to parting with the Phoenix, whose favourite
he had always been, Robert did feel almost as miserable as the Phoenix
thought they all did.

'I ask but the relic designed for the rag-and-bottle man. Give me what
is left of the carpet and let me go.'

'Dare we?' said Anthea. 'Would mother mind?'

'I have dared greatly for your sakes,' remarked the bird.

'Well, then, we will,' said Robert.

The Phoenix fluffed out its feathers joyously.

'Nor shall you regret it, children of golden hearts,' it said.
'Quick--spread the carpet and leave me alone; but first pile high the
fire. Then, while I am immersed in the sacred preliminary rites, do ye
prepare sweet-smelling woods and spices for the last act of parting.'

The children spread out what was left of the carpet. And, after all,
though this was just what they would have wished to have happened, all
hearts were sad. Then they put half a scuttle of coal on the fire