hen,' said Oswald. 'Well?'

'We thought we would go to the pinewoods because of reading in Bret
Harte that the resinous balsam of the pine is healing to the wounded
spirit.'

'I should have thought if anybody's spirit was wounded...' said Dicky in
tones of heatening indignantness.

'Yes, I know. But you'd got the oak, and I expect oaks are just as good,
if not better, especially for English people, because of Oakapple
Day--and----Where was I?'

We told her.

'So we went, and it is a very nice wood--quite tulgy, you know. We
expected to see a Bandersnatch every minute, didn't we, Noel? It's not
very big, though, and on the other side there's an enchanted
desert--rather bare, with patches of grass and brambles. And in the very
middle of it we found the treasure.'

'Let's have a squint at the treasure,' said Dicky. 'Did you fetch it
along?'

Noel and Alice sniggered.

'Not exactly,' said Alice; 'the treasure is a _house_.'

'It's an enchanted house,' said Noel, 'and it's a deserted house, and
the garden is like in "The Sensitive Plant" after the lady has given up
attending.'

'Did you go in?' we asked.

'No,' said Alice; 'we came back for you. And we asked an old man, and
he _did_ say it was in Chancery, so no one can live in it.'

H. O. asked what was enchancery.

'I'm certain the old man meant enchanted,' said Noel, 'only I expect
that's the old-fashioned word for it. Enchanceried is a very nice word.
And it means it's an enchanted house, just like I said.'

Nurse now came out to remark, 'Tea, my dears,' so we left the Saracens'
tower and went in to that meal.

Noel began to make a poem called 'The Enchanceried House,' but we got
him to stop till there was more for him to write about. There soon was
more, and more than enough, as it turned out.

The setting sun had set, but it had left a redness in the sky (like one
of those distant fires that you go after, and they are always miles from
where you are) which shone through the pinetrees. The house looked
black and mysterious against the strawberry-ice-coloured horizon.

It was a good-sized house. The bottom-floor windows were boarded up. It
had a Sensitive-Plantish garden and a paved yard and outhouses. The
garden had a high wall with glass on top, but Oswald and Dicky got into
the yard. Green grass was growing between the paving-stones. The corners
of the stable and coach-house doors were rough, as if from the attacks
of rats, but we never saw any