The king would sit at the head, with his prime minister and a lord or two. At the foot would be the queen with her principal ladies-in-waiting (at _this_ end, so as to leave room for their trains). In between would be the fool, the discoverer of the new land, the people from the other planets, us, and the animals. “‘The animals!’” burst out Delia. “Whoever heard of animals at the table?” Oh, but it was the animals that the banquet was for. They were talking animals, and everyone was scrambling to entertain them, and every place in which they ate they changed their shapes and their skins. “I never heard of such a game,” said Delia, outright, already sufficiently grown-up to regard this as a reason. “Let’s not play it,” said Margaret Amelia Rodman, languidly, and, though Delia had the most emphasis among us, Margaret Amelia was our leader, and we abandoned the game. I cannot recall why Margaret Amelia was our leader, unless it was because she had so many hair-ribbons and, when we had pin fairs, always came with a whole paper, whereas the rest of us merely had some collected in a box, or else rows torn off. But I suppose that we must have selected her for some potentiality; or else it was that a talent for tyranny was hers, since this, like the habit of creeping on all fours and other survivals of prehistoric man, will often mark one of the early stages of individual growth. This time Calista was peace-maker. “Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “We can do that before supper.” “You’ll have to be back in time to help _get_ supper, won’t you?” Delia asked Mary Elizabeth pointedly. Again Mary Elizabeth was unperturbed, save for that faint flush. “Yes,” she said, “I will. So let’s hurry.” We ran toward the school ground, by common consent the destination for short walks, with supper imminent, as Prospect Hill was dedicated to real walks, with nothing pressing upon us. “It says ‘Quick, quick, quick, quick,’” Mary Elizabeth cried, dragging a stick on the pickets of, so to say, a passing fence. “Why, that’s nothing but the stick noise hitting on the fence noise,” Delia explained loftily. “Which makes the loudest noise--the stick or the fence?” Mary Elizabeth put it to her. “Why--” said Delia, and Mary Elizabeth and I both laughed, like little demons, and made our sticks say, “Quick, quick, quick, quick” as far as the big post, that was so like a man standing there to stop us. “See the poor tree. The walk’s stepping on its feet!” cried Mary Elizabeth when we passed the Branchett’s great oak, that had forced up the bricks of the walk. (They must already have been talking of taking it down, that hundred-year oak, to preserve the dignity of the side-walk, for they did so shortly after.) This time it was Margaret Amelia who revolted. “Trees can’t walk,” she said. “There aren’t any _feet_ there.” I took a hand. “You don’t know sure,” I reminded her. “When it’s dark, maybe they do walk. I’ll ask it.”