“But you said he was your child,” was the way she put it.

“I didn’t,” retorted the Snimmy’s wife, with undisguised contempt.  “I said he was the only child we have.  We have him, haven’t we?” And with that she sat down with her back to Sara on her own toadstool, and curled her long white tail around the base with quite unnecessary tightness.  Her nose was not quite so debilitating as the Snimmy’s; still, it nearly stuck into the doorknob as she hemmed.

Sara saw there was nothing further to be got out of her, and she did not wish to pick up the Snoodle on account of his drawback; so she decided to go on to Avrillia’s without further delay, and began to look around her again for the little curly path.  It was pink, this time, instead of curly, but that made it all the more attractive; so she struck into it at once, and went skipping happily toward the arch in the hawthorn hedge.  Just before she reached it she heard Avrillia’s thermometer go off, so she knew that she was on the right path.

The minute she got through the hedge she saw Avrillia, and, oh, loveliest of wonders!  What were those?  Flying around her hair, clinging to her silken skirts, dancing among the shell-flowers, swarming over the balcony, playing a dainty game up and down the marble stairs—­oh, it was the children!  The children were at home!

And when Avrillia saw Sara she came toward her with the loveliest look of welcome, the children hanging all around her like rose-garlands.  And if Sara had loved Avrillia the day before, she could simply find no words now to express her adoration.  For Avrillia knelt down among the shell-flowers, and held out her arms (which were like the necks of swans) to Sara; and she really seemed to see her this time.  And when she smiled at her, her eyes were hardly at all wild, but quite playful and gentle; and so sweet that Sara, for a moment, had a dizzy conviction that if she were a Zizz she would fly right into them.  (Though, of course, the Zizzes’ tails were bitter.) Besides, Avrillia held her at that minute tight to her breast, which was as soft as her own perfect, contrary mother’s, and had, besides a most entrancing, faint perfume of isthagaria.

When she had finished hugging Sara, she held her off at arms’ length, and said to her, smiling, in that lovely voice,

“Well, Sara, you see the children are here.  Aren’t they nice?”

And once more Sara could find no words to express their niceness.  And she could no more have described them to you than if they had been so many endearing young charms.  But one of the queerest, prettiest things she was sure about:  their faces were all dimples!  Moreover, they were much more becoming to them than ordinary features would have been.

“How old are they?” asked Sara, in the most delighted bewilderment.  The friendly little things fluttered and chattered and chirruped around her in the most distracting way, brushing her face with their wings in their eagerness to get acquainted, and even getting their silver sandals tangled in her hair.