Edith Nesbit

“ He wriggled off Anthea's lap.
'Mammy's asleep,' said Jane, hastily. 'Come and be wild beasts in a cage under the table.'
But the Lamb caught his feet and hands, and even his head, so often and so deeply in the holes of the carpet that the cage, or table, had to be moved on to the linoleum, and the carpet lay bare to sight with all its horrid holes.
'Ah,' said the bird, 'it isn't long for this world.'
'No,' said Robert; 'everything comes to an end. It's awful.'
'Sometimes the end is peace,' remarked the Phoenix. ”

“ It was not till she pointed to the cupboard in which all believed the Phoenix to be that Cyril understood.
'Yes,' he said, while Jane and Robert were trying to tell each other how deeply they didn't understand what Anthea were saying; 'but after recent eventfulnesses a new leaf has to be turned over, and, after all, mother is more important than the feelings of any of the lower forms of creation, however unnatural.'
'How beautifully you do do it,' said Anthea, absently beginning to build a card-house for the Lamb—'mixing up what you're saying, I mean. ”

“ Everything that the children had always wanted—toys and games and books, and chocolate and candied cherries and paint-boxes and photographic cameras, and all the presents they had always wanted to give to father and mother and the Lamb, only they had never had the money for them. ”

“ The Lamb was gone—the Lamb, their own precious baby brother—who had never in his happy little life been for a moment out of the sight of eyes that loved him—he was gone. He had gone alone into the great world with no other companion and protector than a carpet with holes in it. The children had never really understood before what an enormously big place the world is. And the Lamb might be anywhere in it!
'And it's no use going to look for him.' Cyril, in flat and wretched tones, only said what the others were thinking.
'Do you wish him to return?' the Phoenix asked ”

“ Then they put half a scuttle of coal on the fire and went out, closing the door on the Phoenix—left, at last, alone with the carpet.
'One of us must keep watch,' said Robert, excitedly, as soon as they were all out of the room, 'and the others can go and buy sweet woods and spices. Get the very best that money can buy, and plenty of them. ”

“ Cook told her to go along, do. And she might as well not have ordered anything, for when lunch came it was just hashed mutton and semolina pudding, and cook had forgotten the sippets for the mutton hash and the semolina pudding was burnt. ”