He gave a howl of delight, for this sight was more than he could manage without some outlet for his pent-up emotion; and at the same moment the trap-door shot open, and the governess came into the room with such a bang and a clatter that Jimbo knew at once her excitement was as great as his own. In her hands she carried the blouse she had taken away the night before. She held it out to him without a word. Her eyes were shining like electric lamps. In less than a second he had slipped his wings through the neatly-made slits, but before he could practise them again, Miss Lake rushed over to him, her face radiant with happiness. "Jimbo! My darling Jimbo!" she cried--and then stopped short, apparently unable to express her emotion. The next instant he was enveloped, wings and all, in a warm confusion of kisses, congratulations and folds of hood. When they became disentangled again the governess went down on her knees and made a careful examination; she pulled the wings out to their full extent and found that they stretched about four feet and a half from tip to tip. "They _are_ beauties!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, "and full grown and strong. I'm not surprised they took so long coming." "Long!" he echoed, "I thought they came awfully quickly." "Not half so quickly as they'll go," she interrupted; adding, when she saw his expression of dismay, "I mean, you'll fly like the wind with them." Jimbo was simply breathless with excitement. He wanted to jump out of the window and escape at once. The blue sky and the sunshine and the white flying clouds sent him an irresistible invitation. He could not wait a minute longer. "Quick," he cried, "I can't wait! They may go again. Show me how to use them. Oh! do show me." "I'll show you everything in time," she answered. There was something in her voice that made him pause in his excitement. He looked at her in silence for some minutes. "But how are _you_ going to escape?" he asked at length. "You haven't got"----he stopped short. The governess stepped back a few paces from him. She threw back the hood from her face. Then she lifted the long black cloak that hung like a cassock almost to her ankles and had always enveloped her hitherto. Jimbo stared. Falling from her shoulders, and folding over her hips, he saw long red feathers clinging to her; and when he dashed forward to touch them with his hands, he found they were just as sleek and smooth and glossy as his own. "And you never told me all this time?" he gasped. "It was safer not," she said. "You'd have been stroking and feeling your shoulders the whole time, and the wings might never have come at all."