Birds always take what they want.

It is not regarded as stealing, except in the case of magpies.' The children were glad to find they had been right in supposing this to be the case, on the day when they had wings, and had enjoyed somebody else's ripe plums.
'Yes; let the Phoenix get us something to eat, anyway,' Robert urged--' ('If it will be so kind you mean,' corrected Anthea, in a whisper); 'if it will be so kind, and we can be thinking while it's gone.' So the Phoenix fluttered up through the grey space of the tower and vanished at the top, and it was not till it had quite gone that Jane said-- 'Suppose it never comes back.' It was not a pleasant thought, and though Anthea at once said, 'Of course it will come back; I'm certain it's a bird of its word,' a further gloom was cast by the idea.

For, curiously enough, there was no door to the tower, and all the windows were far, far too high to be reached by the most adventurous climber.

It was cold, too, and Anthea shivered.
'Yes,' said Cyril, 'it's like being at the bottom of a well.' The children waited in a sad and hungry silence, and got little stiff necks with holding their little heads back to look up the inside of the tall grey tower, to see if the Phoenix were coming.
At last it came.

It looked very big as it fluttered down between the walls, and as it neared them the children saw that its bigness was caused by a basket of boiled chestnuts which it carried in one claw.
In the other it held a piece of bread.