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The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. (Edith) Nesbit
page 52 of 272 (19%)
After dinner father was very sleepy indeed, because he had been
working hard all the week; but he did not yield to the voice that
said, 'Go and have an hour's rest.' He nursed the Lamb, who had a
horrid cough that cook said was whooping-cough as sure as eggs, and
he said--

'Come along, kiddies; I've got a ripping book from the library,
called The Golden Age, and I'll read it to you.'

Mother settled herself on the drawing-room sofa, and said she could
listen quite nicely with her eyes shut. The Lamb snugged into the
'armchair corner' of daddy's arm, and the others got into a happy
heap on the hearth-rug. At first, of course, there were too many
feet and knees and shoulders and elbows, but real comfort was
actually settling down on them, and the Phoenix and the carpet were
put away on the back top shelf of their minds (beautiful things
that could be taken out and played with later), when a surly solid
knock came at the drawing-room door. It opened an angry inch, and
the cook's voice said, 'Please, m', may I speak to you a moment?'

Mother looked at father with a desperate expression. Then she put
her pretty sparkly Sunday shoes down from the sofa, and stood up in
them and sighed.

'As good fish in the sea,' said father, cheerfully, and it was not
till much later that the children understood what he meant.

Mother went out into the passage, which is called 'the hall', where
the umbrella-stand is, and the picture of the 'Monarch of the Glen'
in a yellow shining frame, with brown spots on the Monarch from the
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