Captain Pegg rose to his feet with dignity.

'These young gentlemen,' he said, simply, 'have with my help been able to locate some buried treasure, which was stolen from me years ago by a man named Jenks, and has lain hidden here since two decades. I hereby renounce all claim to it in favor of my three brave friends!'

Mr. Pegg was bent over the treasure.

'Now, look here, sir,' he said, rather sharply, 'some of this seems to be quite valuable stuff--'

'I know the value of it to a penny,' replied his father, with equal asperity, 'and I intend that it shall belong solely and wholly to these boys.'

'Whatever are you rigged up like that for?' demanded his daughter-in-law.

'As gentlemen of spirit,' replied Captain Pegg, patiently, 'we chose to dress the part. We do what we can to keep a little glamour and gayety in the world. Some folk'--he looked at Mrs. Handsomebody--'would like to discipline it all away.'

'I think,' said our governess, 'that considering it is _my_ back yard, I have some claim to--'

'None at all, madam--none at all!' interrupted Captain Pegg. 'By all the rules of treasure-hunting, the finder keeps the treasure.'

Mrs. Handsomebody was silenced. She did not wish to quarrel with the Peggs.

Mrs. Pegg moved closer to her.

'Mrs. Handsomebody,' she said, winking her white eyelashes very fast, 'I really do not think that you should allow your pupils to accept this--er--treasure. My father-in-law has become very eccentric of late, and I am positive that he himself buried these things very recently.

Only day before yesterday, I saw that set of ivory chessmen on his writing-table.'

'Hold your tongue, Sophia!' shouted Captain Pegg loudly.

Mr. Mortimer Pegg looked warningly at his wife.

'All right, governor! Don't you worry,' he said, taking his father's arm. 'It shall be just as you say; but one thing is certain, you'll take your death of cold if you stay out in this night air.'

As he spoke, he turned up the collar of his coat.

Captain Pegg shook hands with a grand air with Angel and me, then he lifted The Seraph in his arms and kissed him.

'Good-night, bantling!' he said, softly. 'Sleep tight!'

He turned then to his son.

'Mort,' said he, 'I haven't kissed a little boy like that since you were just so high.'

Mr. Pegg laughed and shivered, and they went off quite amiably, arm in arm, Mrs. Pegg following, muttering to herself.

Mrs. Handsomebody looked disparagingly at the treasure. 'Mary Ellen,'

she ordered, 'help the children to gather up that rubbish, and come in at once! Such an hour it is!'

Mary Ellen, with many exclamations, a.s.sisted in the removal of the treasure to our bedroom. Mrs. Handsomebody, after seeing it deposited there, and us safely under the bedclothes, herself extinguished the gas.

'I shall write to your father,' she said, severely, 'and tell him the whole circ.u.mstance. _Then_ we shall see what is to be done with _you_, and with the _treasure_.'

With this veiled threat she left us. We snuggled our little bodies together. We were cold.

'I'll write to father myself, to-morrow, an' 'splain everything,' I announced.

'D' you know,' mused Angel, 'I b'lieve I'll be a pirate, 'stead of a civil engineer like father. I b'lieve there's more in it.'

'I'll be an engineer just the same,' said I.

'I fink,' murmured The Seraph, sleepily, 'I fink I'll jus' be a bishop, an' go to bed at pwoper times an' have poached eggs for tea.'

THE PRINCESS OF MAKE-BELIEVE

ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL

THE Princess was washing dishes. On her feet she would barely have reached the rim of the great dish-pan, but on the soap-box she did very well. A grimy calico ap.r.o.n trailed to the floor.

'Now this golden platter I must wash _extry_ clean,' the Princess said.

'The Queen is ve-ry particular about her golden platters. Last time, when I left one o' the corners,--it's such a nextremely heavy platter to hold,--she gave me a scold,--oh, I mean,--I mean she tapped me a little love pat on my cheek with her golden spoon.'

It was a great brown-veined stoneware platter, and the arms of the Princess ached with holding it. Then, in an unwary instant, it slipped out of her soapsudsy little fingers and crashed to the floor. Oh! oh!

the Queen! the Queen! She was coming! The Princess heard her shrill, angry voice, and felt the jar of her heavy steps. There was the s.p.a.ce of an instant--an instant is so short!--before the storm broke.

'You little limb o' Satan! That's my best platter, is it? Broke all to bits, eh? I'll break'--But there was a flurry of dingy ap.r.o.n and dingier petticoats, and the little Princess had fled. She did not stop till she was in her Secret Place among the willows. Her small lean face was pale, but undaunted.

'Th-the Queen isn't feeling very well to-day,' she panted. 'It's wash-day up at the Castle. She never enjoys herself on wash-days. And then that golden platter--I'm sorry I smashed it all to flinders! When the Prince comes I shall ask him to buy another.'

The Prince had never come, but the Princess waited for him patiently.

She sat with her face to the west and looked for him to come through the willows with the red sunset light filtering across his hair. That was the way the Prince was coming, though the time was not set. It might be a good while before he came, and then again--you never could tell!

'But when he does, and we've had a little while to get acquainted, then I shall say to him, "Hear, O Prince, and give ear to my--my pet.i.tion!

For verily, verily, I have broken many golden platters and jasper cups and saucers, and the Queen, long live her! is sore--sore--"'

The Princess pondered for the forgotten word. She put up a little lean brown hand and rubbed a tingling spot on her temple--ah, not the Queen!

It was the Princess--long live her!--who was 'sore.'

'"I beseech thee, O Prince," I shall say, "buy new golden platters and jasper cups and saucers for the Queen, and then shall I verily, verily be--be--"'

Oh, the long words--how they slipped out of reach! The little Princess sighed rather wearily. She would have to rehea.r.s.e that speech so many times before the Prince came. Suppose he came to-night! Suppose she looked up now, this minute, toward the golden west, and he was there, swinging along through the willow canes toward her!

But there was no one swinging along through the willows. The yellow light flickered through--that was all. Somewhere, a long way off, sounded the monotonous hum of men's voices. Through the lace-work of willow twigs there showed the faintest possible blur of color. Down beyond, in the clearing, the Castle Guards in blue jean blouses were pulling stumps. The Princess could not see their dull, pa.s.sionless faces, and she was glad of it. The Castle Guards depressed her. But they were not as bad as the Castle Guardesses. _They_ were mostly old women with bleared, dim eyes, and they wore such faded--silks.

'_My_ silk dress is rather faded,' murmured the little Princess wistfully.

She smoothed down the scant calico skirt with her brown little fingers.

The patch in it she would not see.