Sara was charmed.  But as she stood gazing at the Plynck she remembered what she had heard her say as she came in.  “Will—­will she fly?” she whispered to the Echo.

“Well, I don’t know,” said the Echo of the Plynck.  “There’s a rule that she must, and so it’s quite an effort.  And there’s a rule that she must not sit on that particular branch of the Gugollaph-tree.  So of course she usually sits there.  You wouldn’t think, yourself, that she’d want to sit there, day after day, if there wasn’t—­would you?”

Sara was speechless; she was wondering why anything that seemed so reasonable and familiar should sound so strange.  But it was a blissful wonder, and she stood spellbound, while the sound of breaking rules continued to fall with an enchanting effect upon the still air of the Garden.  All at once she was startled nearly out of her wits by the Plynck, who dropped an unbroken rule and shrieked,

“Look!  Be careful!  Oh, dear, oh, dear, it’s in!”

“Oh, what is it?” cried Sara, afraid to move, yet longing to clap her hand to her cheek; for she knew by a sudden terrible tickling there that something had happened to her southwest dimple—­and she had meant to be so careful!  And yet she had allowed herself to get so interested in the talk of the Plynck and her Echo that she had walked right past Schlorge’s beautiful dimple-holder.  “What is it?” she cried, jumping up and down.  “Oh, what is it?”

“It’s one of the Zizzes!” cried the Plynck.  “Where are the forceps?  Run for Schlorge—­won’t somebody please run for Schlorge?”

She sat fluttering her lovely pink plumes and gazing around with her sweet, wild, golden eyes in such acute distress that the sight of her grieved and terrified Sara even more than the awful tickling.  “I’ll go—­” she began, desperately.

But that seemed to frighten the Plynck more than ever.  “Oh, don’t you go,” she cried, more wildly than before.  “You stay right here where I can watch it!  Oh, somebody—­”

“I can’t come out of the pool,” panted her Echo, fluttering around the rim distressfully.

“I know I could never in Zeelup get there, with this consanguineous handle,” hesitated the Teacup, in tears.

And just then they saw one of the Gunki rushing off down the road as fast as his feet could carry him.

The Plynck drew a sobbing breath of relief.  “Don’t cry, dear—­stand still,” she said, finding time at last to feel sorry for Sara.  “We’ll soon have it out now, when Schlorge gets here.”

Sara stood as still as she could, for the tickling.  “What is it?” she ventured to ask, tremulously.

“It’s a Zizz, dear,” said the Plynck, soothingly.  “He flew into your dimple and got stuck in the sugar left there from your last smile.  You should have wiped it off,” she added, very gently.  “Standing so close to the pool has made it sticky, and now the poor little Zizz—­”

“I meant to take off my dimples entirely,” said Sara, her lip beginning to tremble again.