k socks.

"Oh, I wish it wouldn't! Oh, I wish it wouldn't! You boys might wish as
well!"

They all wished hard, for the sight was enough to dismay the most
heartless. They all wished so hard, indeed, that they felt quite giddy
and almost lost consciousness; but the wishing was quite vain, for, when
the wood ceased to whirl round, their dazed eyes were riveted at once by
the spectacle of a very proper-looking young man in flannels and a straw
hat--a young man who wore the same little black mustache which just
before they had actually seen growing upon the Baby's lip. This, then,
was the Lamb--grown up! Their own Lamb! It was a terrible moment. The
grown-up Lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself
against the trunk of the sweet chestnut. He tilted the straw hat over
his eyes. He was evidently weary. He was going to sleep. The Lamb--the
original little tiresome beloved Lamb often went to sleep at odd times
and in unexpected places. Was this new Lamb in the grey flannel suit and
the pale green necktie like the other Lamb? or had his mind grown up
together with his body?

That was the question which the others, in a hurried council held among
the yellowing brake-fern a few yards from the sleeper, debated eagerly.

"Whichever it is, it'll be just as awful," said Anthea. "If his inside
senses are grown up too, he won't stand our looking after him; and if
he's still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to get him to do
anything? And it'll be getting on for dinner-time in a minute."

"And we haven't got any nuts," said Jane.

"Oh bother nuts!" said Robert, "but dinner's different--I didn't have
half enough dinner yesterday. Couldn't we tie him to the tree and go
home to our dinner and come back afterwards?"

"A fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the Lamb!"
said Cyril in scornful misery. "And it'll be just the same if we go back
with him in the state he is now. Yes, I know it's my doing; don't rub it
in! I know I'm a beast, and not fit to live; you can take that for
settled, and say no more about it. The question is, what are we going to
do?"

"Let's wake him up, and take him into Rochester or Maidstone and get
something to eat at a baker's shop," said Robert hopefully.

"Take him?" repeated Cyril. "Yes--do! It's all my fault--I don't deny
that--but you'll find you've got your work cut out for you if you try to
take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always was spoilt, but now he