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Shall we take it right out and dust underneath properly?”
    “Yes,” said Phyllis. “Come on—tug!”
    The seat of the chair, which was an enormous velvet cushion, came out with a jerk. The girls were just going to take it downstairs to beat, when Jane caught sight of something deep down in the underseat of the chair. She put her hand down and pulled it out. It was a fiat leather case. She opened it—and gave a loud cry.
    “Phyllis! This case is full of paper money. Look— pound notes—and ten-shilling notes! Good gracious! Who do you suppose it belongs to?”
    “I can’t imagine. We’ll tell Aunt Tabitha at tea-time and see what she says,” said Phyllis, excited. “I daren’t wake her now. Come on—let’s finish our job. Put the case somewhere safe till tea-time.”
    At tea-time the two girls took in the tea-tray most carefully. Phyllis had made the tea, and had filled the hot-water jug. The bread-and-butter was already cut. The cake Jane had taken out of the tin and put on a plate.

    “Dear me! Where is Mary?” asked Aunt Tabitha in surprise, when the girls came in with the tea-things.
    “She’s not feeling well,” said Jane. “So she is lying down for a little while. She was in the middle of turning out your little sewing-room, Aunt Tabitha, and we thought we would finish it for her. We took the big seat out of the old arm-chair there, to beat the dust from it—and right down under the seat we found
this!”
    Jane gave her aunt the leather case. Aunt Tabitha stared at it in the greatest amazement and delight.
    “My lost note-case!” she cried. “Oh, to think it’s found again! There are twenty pounds in it! I lost it nearly two years ago, and hunted for it everywhere! Well, well, well!”

    “Oh, Aunt Tabitha—I
am
pleased for you!” cried Phyllis. “I know how horrid it is to lose things—and how lovely to find them again!”
    “I do think you are good children to finish turning out the sewing-room,” said Aunt Tabitha. “And to think you were thorough enough to take the cushion-seat out of the chair to beat! Well, well! I’ve thought you were rather careless children—but I’m sorry I thought that now. I think you are good and helpful children, and I am pleased with you!”
    Phyllis and Jane went red with pleasure. They each thought how nearly they had slipped away and gone home, but they did not want to tell Aunt Tabitha that. Instead they sat and ate a good tea, and had two slices of cake each because Aunt Tabitha was so pleased with them.
    And the next day their aunt took them shopping. She bought a big baby-doll for Jane, with eyes that opened and shut, and a dolls’ house for Phyllis, with real electric lights in the rooms. It was marvellous.
    “That’s your share of the twenty pounds you found!” said Aunt Tabitha. “Nice children! Good children! I’m glad you are staying with me!”
    “We’re glad, too,” said Jane, and she hugged her aunt hard. And, dear me, wasn’t it a good thing they didn’t run away the day before! You never know how things are going to turn out, do you? It’s always best to go on trying, no matter what happens.

A Spell for a Lazy Boy
    Leslie was one of those boys who are always late for breakfast, late for school, last out at playtime, and behind in all their work. He was lazy and slow, and he just wouldn’t be quick.
    Now one day his father called him to him and spoke kindly but sternly to him. “Listen, Leslie. I am going to give you a reward if you try to alter yourself. You will be one of the useless people in the world when you grow up if you don’t stir yourself up a bit, and really try not to be late or slow in everything. If for a whole week you are in time for everything, and even first at some things, and make a few runs at cricket, then I will give you a new bicycle.”
    “Oooh!” said Leslie, his eyes opening wide. All his friends had bicycles, but his father had never given him one because Leslie never seemed to try hard at