had come; it pulled the bicycle
behind it as easily as a child pulls a cotton-reel along the floor by a
bit of thread. So that Harold and Billy were home by tea-time, and it
was the jolliest meal either of them had ever had.

They had determined to stop the bicycle by cutting the string, and then
Harold would have lost the patent kite, which would have been a pity.
But, most happily, the string of the kite caught in the vane on the top
of the church tower, and the bicycle stopped by itself exactly opposite
the butcher's boy to whom it belonged. He had a noble heart, and he was
very glad to see his bicycle again.

After tea the boys went up the church tower to get the kite; and I don't
suppose you will believe me when I tell you that there, in the niche of
a window of the belfry, was a jackdaw's nest, and in it the Historical
Essay which the jackdaw had stolen, as you will have guessed, for the
sake of the bright gilt manuscript fastener in the corner.

And now Harold and Billy became really chums, in spite of all the
qualities which they could not help disliking in each other. Each found
some things in the other that he didn't dislike so very much, after all.

When Harold grows up he will sell many patent kites, and we shall all be
able to ride bicycles on the sea.

Billy sent in his essay, but he did not get the prize; so it wouldn't
have mattered if it had never been found, only I am glad it was found.

I hope you will not think that this is a made-up story. It is very
nearly as true as any of the history in Billy's essay that didn't get a
prize. The only thing I can't quite believe myself is about the roll of
the right kind of paper being in the chimney; but Harold couldn't think
of anything else to dream about, and the most fortunate accidents do
happen sometimes even in stories.

THE TWOPENNY SPELL

Lucy was a very good little girl indeed, and Harry was not so bad--for a
boy, though the grown-ups called him a limb! They both got on very well
at school, and were not wholly unloved at home. Perhaps Lucy was a bit
of a muff, and Harry was certainly very rude to call her one, but she
need not have replied by calling him a 'beast.' I think she did it
partly to show him that she was not quite so much of a muff as he
thought, and partly because she was naturally annoyed at being buried up
to her waist in the ground among the gooseberry-bushes. She got into the
hole Harry had dug because he said it might ma