sums. Alice
and Noel are twins: they are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngest
brother. It is one of us that tells this story--but I shall not tell you
which: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going
on you may be trying to guess, only I bet you don't. It was Oswald
who first thought of looking for treasure. Oswald often thinks of very
interesting things. And directly he thought of it he did not keep it
to himself, as some boys would have done, but he told the others, and
said--

'I'll tell you what, we must go and seek for treasure: it is always what
you do to restore the fallen fortunes of your House.'

Dora said it was all very well. She often says that. She was trying to
mend a large hole in one of Noel's stockings. He tore it on a nail when
we were playing shipwrecked mariners on top of the chicken-house the day
H. O. fell off and cut his chin: he has the scar still. Dora is the only
one of us who ever tries to mend anything. Alice tries to make things
sometimes. Once she knitted a red scarf for Noel because his chest
is delicate, but it was much wider at one end than the other, and he
wouldn't wear it. So we used it as a pennon, and it did very well,
because most of our things are black or grey since Mother died; and
scarlet was a nice change. Father does not like you to ask for new
things. That was one way we had of knowing that the fortunes of the
ancient House of Bastable were really fallen. Another way was that there
was no more pocket-money--except a penny now and then to the little
ones, and people did not come to dinner any more, like they used to,
with pretty dresses, driving up in cabs--and the carpets got holes in
them--and when the legs came off things they were not sent to be mended,
and we gave _up_ having the gardener except for the front garden, and
not that very often. And the silver in the big oak plate-chest that is
lined with green baize all went away to the shop to have the dents
and scratches taken out of it, and it never came back. We think Father
hadn't enough money to pay the silver man for taking out the dents and
scratches. The new spoons and forks were yellowy-white, and not so heavy
as the old ones, and they never shone after the first day or two.

Father was very ill after Mother died; and while he was ill his
business-partner went to Spain--and there was never much money
afterwards. I don't know why. Then the servants left and there was only
one, a General. A