In front of them lay land.
'The coast of France,' said the Phoenix, waking up and pointing with its wing.

'Where do you wish to go?
I should always keep one wish, of course--for emergencies--otherwise you may get into an emergency from which you can't emerge at all.' But the children were far too deeply interested to listen.
'I tell you what,' said Cyril: 'let's let the thing go on and on, and when we see a place we really want to stop at--why, we'll just stop.
Isn't this ripping ?' 'It's like trains,' said Anthea, as they swept over the low-lying coast-line and held a steady course above orderly fields and straight roads bordered with poplar trees--'like express trains, only in trains you never can see anything because of grown-ups wanting the windows shut; and then they breathe on them, and it's like ground glass, and nobody can see anything, and then they go to sleep.' 'It's like tobogganing,' said Robert, 'so fast and smooth, only there's no door-mat to stop short on--it goes on and on.' 'You darling Phoenix,' said Jane, 'it's all your doing.

Oh, look at that ducky little church and the women with flappy cappy things on their heads.' 'Don't mention it,' said the Phoenix, with sleepy politeness.
'OH!' said Cyril, summing up all the rapture that was in every heart.
'Look at it all--look at it--and think of the Kentish Town Road!' Every one looked and every one thought.

And the glorious, gliding, smooth, steady rush went on, and they looked down on strange and beautiful things, and held their breath and let it go in deep sighs, and said 'Oh!' and 'Ah!' till it was long past dinner-time.
It was Jane who suddenly said, 'I wish we'd brought that jam tart and cold mutton with us.

It would have been jolly to have a picnic in the air.' The jam tart and cold mutton were, however, far away, sitting quietly in the larder of the house in Camden Town which the children were supposed to be keeping.