might try.



CHAPTER 4
TWO BAZAARS


Mother was really a great dear. She was pretty and she was loving,
and most frightfully good when you were ill, and always kind, and
almost always just. That is, she was just when she understood
things. But of course she did not always understand things. No
one understands everything, and mothers are not angels, though a
good many of them come pretty near it. The children knew that
mother always WANTED to do what was best for them, even if she was
not clever enough to know exactly what was the best. That was why
all of them, but much more particularly Anthea, felt rather
uncomfortable at keeping the great secret from her of the wishing
carpet and the Phoenix. And Anthea, whose inside mind was made so
that she was able to be much more uncomfortable than the others,
had decided that she MUST tell her mother the truth, however little
likely it was that her mother would believe it.

'Then I shall have done what's right,' said she to the Phoenix;
'and if she doesn't believe me it won't be my fault--will it?'

'Not in the least,' said the golden bird. 'And she won't, so
you're quite safe.'

Anthea chose a time when she was doing her home-lessons--they were