is in the chest?'

'You will see by-and-by, and remember I have warned you!' said George,
mysteriously.

Nannie, though alarmed, bravely stood her ground and watched the two
boys as they tried every key on the bunch; then, finding that none
fitted, they used a screw-driver, and at last were successful.

'Now, Nannie!' shouted George, as Pelham lifted the heavy lid. 'Look
out! I am sure I heard something stirring inside.'

Pelham held up the candle and looked eagerly into the dark chest.

'Empty! quite empty!' he cried, in a tone of the utmost disgust.
'Nothing at all in it but an old letter!' and he threw the paper on to
the ground by the side of the chisel.

'I told you so,' began Nannie, but the sentence was hardly out of her
mouth before she gave a little shriek and leapt high into the air. 'A
rat! a horrid rat!' shrieked the child. 'It ran over my foot.'

George did not shriek; but he, too, was startled, for the rat had
appeared so suddenly.

'It came right out of the chest,' he said, as if to excuse his alarm.

'It could not!' said Pelham, bluntly. 'I was looking in the chest when
Nannie shrieked, and there was nothing in it--that I know! I saw no rat
anywhere.'

'But I saw it!' said George. 'Look! look!' he shouted, excitedly. 'There
it goes! Just by your foot! You may depend upon it this box has a false
bottom. Let us turn it over and see.'

'I believe you are right, George!' said Pelham. 'Hold the candle, Nan,
and we will see where this rat came from.'

The chest, empty as it appeared to be, was yet so heavy that it was with
difficulty that the two boys could turn it over, but they did it at
last, and now there was no doubt where the rat had come from, for the
floor was strewn with little bits of nibbled paper, and there was a
biggish hole in the false bottom by which he had evidently gnawed his
way into the chest.

'Now, then, the fun is beginning!' exclaimed Pelham, excitedly, 'We must
get inside this false bottom; it is full of old letters. I can see that
much! Perhaps we shall find a love-letter of William the Conqueror to
Joan of Arc!'

'Oh, no, you will not!' said Nannie, wisely, 'for Joan of Arc lived many
reigns after William I. I read about her only last week.'

But neither Pelham nor George heeded Nannie's superior information, so
busy were they prizing off the somewhat thin layer of wood which formed
the false bottom of the chest.

It gave way at last, and disclosed a whole heap o