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 daffodils and there don't seem to be as many as there were."

Two of the children opened their mouths, and he knew pretty well what they were going to say. So he hurried to go on talking before anyone could say anything disagreeable about Someone Else Did It In Spite Of My Telling Her Not To.

"It appears to me," he said, "that around this house there is something dangerous that happens to daffodils. I don't know what it can be, but we will have to do our best. Here are pencils and crayons and some sheets of thick paper. I want you to draw some daffodils and colour them. We'll cut them out and put them in the ground just where the real ones were."

Helen and Blythe were too young to see in this anything more than a new game, and they were full of enthusiasm. Christopher and Louise looked at each other a bit queerly, and then started to say something that began with a But. Again he hastened to interrupt them.

"Come on," he said. "Let's see how nicely you can make them. Now we'll have a daffodil bed that we can all really enjoy."

They sat round the dining-room table, with a