Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which
she was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day
without any umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy
because of the rain, and were all growling gloomily. When she
awoke, both the growling and the rain went on just the same. The
growling was the heavy regular breathing of her sister Jane, who
had a slight cold and was still asleep. The rain fell in slow
drops on to Anthea's face from the wet corner of a bath-towel which
her brother Robert was gently squeezing the water out of, to wake
her up, as he now explained.
'Oh, drop it!' she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not
a brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds,
booby-traps, original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and
the other little accomplishments which make home happy.