Page:Fivechildren.djvu/375

 patches. It had long black hair, and in the hair were feathers!

Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The pudding was growing white and cold on their plates. No one could move.

Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell was broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very like a girl.

"There, now!" she said. "I told you so!"

The pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily wrapping their portions in a Spectator of the week before the week before last, they hid them behind the crinkled paper stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to reconnoitre and to hold a hurried council.

"Pax," said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's bedroom. "Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute."

"All right," said Anthea; "but you see now!"

No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the windows.