Every one was a little cross--some days are like that, usually Mondays, by the way.

And this was a Monday.
'I shouldn't wonder if your precious Phoenix had gone off for good,' said Cyril; 'and I don't know that I blame it.

Look at the weather!' 'It's not worth looking at,' said Robert.

And indeed it wasn't.
'The Phoenix hasn't gone--I'm sure it hasn't,' said Anthea.

'I'll have another look for it.' Anthea looked under tables and chairs, and in boxes and baskets, in mother's work-bag and father's portmanteau, but still the Phoenix showed not so much as the tip of one shining feather.
Then suddenly Robert remembered how the whole of the Greek invocation song of seven thousand lines had been condensed by him into one English hexameter, so he stood on the carpet and chanted-- 'Oh, come along, come along, you good old beautiful Phoenix,' and almost at once there was a rustle of wings down the kitchen stairs, and the Phoenix sailed in on wide gold wings.
'Where on earth HAVE you been ?' asked Anthea.