The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good resolutions. At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness--four very nasty things--all joined together to bring one nice thing, and that was sleep. The children lay asleep in a row, with their beautiful eyes shut and their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke first. The sun had set, and the twilight was coming on. Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found she could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone, and then she pinched the others. They, also, were soft. "Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!" she added, so that they might not feel jealous. When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them about the strange children. "A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent." "I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be to try to explain things to Martha. "And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little things, you?" "In the lane." "Why didn't you come home hours ago?" "We couldn't because of _them_," said Anthea. "Who?" "The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper--we are so hungry." "Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with strange children--down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind, if you see them again, don't you speak to them--not one word nor so much as a look--but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their beauty for them!" "If ever we _do_ see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones-- "And we'll take jolly good care we never _do_ see them again." And they never have. CHAPTER II GOLDEN GUINEAS Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which she was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day without an umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy because of the rain, and were all growling gloomily. When she awoke, both the growling and the rain went on just the same. The growling was the heavy regular breathing of her sister Jane, who had a slight cold and was still asleep. The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face from the wet corner of a bath-towel out of which her brother Robert was gently squeezing the water, to wake her up, as he now explained.