, not till the dream's
finished and I wake up with that nasty bell a rang-tanging in my
ears--so I tell you.'

'Are you SURE,' Anthea anxiously asked the Phoenix, 'that she will be
quite safe here?'

'She will find the nest of a queen a very precious and soft thing,' said
the bird, solemnly.

'There--you hear,' said Cyril. 'You're in for a precious soft thing,
so mind you're a good queen, cook. It's more than you'd any right to
expect, but long may you reign.'

Some of the cook's copper-coloured subjects now advanced from the forest
with long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scented, and
hung them respectfully round the neck of their new sovereign.

'What! all them lovely bokays for me!' exclaimed the enraptured cook.
'Well, this here is something LIKE a dream, I must say.'

She sat up very straight on the carpet, and the copper-coloured ones,
themselves wreathed in garlands of the gayest flowers, madly stuck
parrot feathers in their hair and began to dance. It was a dance such as
you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the
cook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strange-shaped
drums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance got
faster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fell
on the sand tired out.

The new queen, with her white crown-cap all on one side, clapped wildly.

'Brayvo!' she cried, 'brayvo! It's better than the Albert Edward
Music-hall in the Kentish Town Road. Go it again!'

But the Phoenix would not translate this request into the
copper-coloured language; and when the savages had recovered their
breath, they implored their queen to leave her white escort and come
with them to their huts.

'The finest shall be yours, O queen,' said they.

'Well--so long!' said the cook, getting heavily on to her feet, when the
Phoenix had translated this request. 'No more kitchens and attics for
me, thank you. I'm off to my royal palace, I am; and I only wish this
here dream would keep on for ever and ever.'

She picked up the ends of the garlands that trailed round her feet,
and the children had one last glimpse of her striped stockings and worn
elastic-side boots before she disappeared into the shadow of the forest,
surrounded by her dusky retainers, singing songs of rejoicing as they
went.

'WELL!' said Cyril, 'I suppose she's all right, but they don't seem to
count us for much, one way or the other.'

'Oh,'