The boys went out for a walk in the afternoon, and the gentle Phoenix paced up and down the table--for exercise, as it said--and talked to the industrious girls about their carpet.
'It is not an ordinary, ignorant, innocent carpet from Kidderminster,' it said, 'it is a carpet with a past--a Persian past.

Do you know that in happier years, when that carpet was the property of caliphs, viziers, kings, and sultans, it never lay on a floor ?' 'I thought the floor was the proper home of a carpet,' Jane interrupted.
'Not of a MAGIC carpet,' said the Phoenix; 'why, if it had been allowed to lie about on floors there wouldn't be much of it left now.

No, indeed! It has lived in chests of cedarwood, inlaid with pearl and ivory, wrapped in priceless tissues of cloth of gold, embroidered with gems of fabulous value.

It has reposed in the sandal-wood caskets of princesses, and in the rose-attar-scented treasure-houses of kings.
Never, never, had any one degraded it by walking on it--except in the way of business, when wishes were required, and then they always took their shoes off.

And YOU--' 'Oh, DON'T!' said Jane, very near tears.