down the passage and returned to the night-nursery. She and Orion
slipped into their respective little cots and lay down without waking
either Fortune or Susan, who slept in beds at the opposite side of the
room. Iris and Apollo also returned to their beds, and presently
Apollo dropped asleep, for, though he had an alarming temper, his fits
of passion never lasted long. But Iris did not close her bright brown
eyes again that morning. She lay awake, full of troubled
thoughts--thoughts far too old for her tender years.

It was one of Fortune's fads never on any occasion to awaken a
sleeping child, and as the other children slept rather longer than
usual after their early waking, breakfast was in consequence full half
an hour late in the day-nursery that morning. At last, however, it was
finished. No special lessons had been attended to since mother had
gone away to the angels, and the children, snatching up their hats,
rushed off as fast as possible to the garden. When they got there they
all four breathed freely. This at least was their own domain--their
fairyland, their country of adventure. From here they could travel to
goodness only knew where--sometimes to the stars with bright Apollo
and brave Orion--sometimes to happy hunting fields with Diana, the
goddess of the chase, and sometimes they might even visit the rainbow,
with sweet Iris as their companion.

There never were happier children than these four in that lovely,
lovely beyond words, garden. When the children went into it, it seemed
as if an additional ray of sunshine had come out to fill all the happy
world with light and love and beauty. The bees hummed more
industriously than ever, the flowers opened their sweet eyes and gazed
at the children, the animals came round them in a group.