ildred had been
so happy, and which seemed now to be over for ever. He thought of the
beautiful stone carvings over the doorway, and of what Pastor Dendel had
said to him about them. They had fallen; and who knew what had become
of kind Pastor Dendel? The garden, with all its fresh green and gay
blossoms, was now a muddy stream; rank smells and thick mists now came
up from what had been meadows and corn-fields; and his father, whose
manly voice had been daily heard singing from the mill, where was he?
It would not do to stay thinking of these things; so Oliver hastened
back with his tools, and with the heavy kitchen hammer, which he also
found.

None of these would open the chest. The party managed it at last by
heating a large nail, which they drew out from a shattered door-post,
and burning holes in the wood of the chest, close by the nails which
fastened the hinges, so as to loosen them, and make them drop out. The
lid being raised, a great variety of articles was found within, so
nicely packed that the wet had penetrated but a very little way.
Mildred had looked on thoughtfully; and she saw that Oliver paused when
the contents lay open to view. She looked in her brother's face, and
said--

"I wonder who this chest belonged to?"

"I was just thinking so," observed Oliver.

"Never mind that," said Ailwin. "We may know, some day or other, or we
may not. Meantime, it is ours. Come, make haste, and see what there is
to wrap up poor baby in, on cold nights."

"We will look for something of that sort,--I am sure we might use such a
thing as that," said Oliver: "but..."

"But," said Mildred, "I don't think these other things are ours, any
more than they ever were. Nobody ever gave them to us. They have
belonged to somebody else;--to somebody that may be wondering at this
moment where they are."

"Nonsense, Mildred!" exclaimed Ailwin. "Who gave you the harness that
braces the raft, or the meal you have been living on these two days, I
wonder: and how do you know but somebody is hungry, and longing for it,
at this minute?"

"I wish they had it, then," replied Mildred. "But, Oliver, were we
wrong to use the meal? I never thought of that."

"Nor I: but I think we were right enough there. The meal would all have
been spoiled presently; and meal (and the harness too) is a sort of
thing that we can pay for, or make up for in some way, if ever we can
meet with the people who lost that chest."

"And Geor