'Poor, poor!' said the Lamb. And he let the gipsy woman kiss him, and, what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return - a very nice kiss, as all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some babies give. The gipsy woman moved her finger about on his forehead, as if she had been writing something there, and the same with his chest and his hands and his feet; then she said: 'May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the strong heart to love with, and the strong hands to work with, and the strong feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his own.' Then she said something in a strange language no one could understand, and suddenly added: 'Well, I must be saying "so long" - and glad to have made your acquaintance.' And she turned and went back to her home - the tent by the grassy roadside. The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then Robert said, 'How silly of her! Even sunset didn't put her right. What rot she talked!' 'Well,' said Cyril, 'if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of her -' 'Decent?' said Anthea; 'it was very nice indeed of her. I think she's a dear.' 'She's just too frightfully nice for anything,' said Jane. And they went home - very late for tea and unspeakably late for dinner. Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe. 'I say - it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone,' said Robert, later. 'Of course.' 'But do you feel different about it now the sun's set?' 'No,' said all the others together. 'Then it's lasted over sunset with us.' 'No, it hasn't,' Cyril explained. 'The wish didn't do anything to US. We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our proper selves, only we were all pigs this morning; especially you, Robert.' Robert bore this much with a strange calm. 'I certainly THOUGHT I didn't want him this morning,' said he. 'Perhaps I was a pig. But everything looked so different when we thought we were going to lose him.' CHAPTER 4 WINGS