t?" asked the bathing-beach girl, and she seemed interested more
than usual.

"Oh, a lot of money," went on Rose. "Please, Daddy, can't I show Mary
the pocketbook I found?" she asked, for Miss Turner had told the
children to call her by her first name. "I want to show her the
pocketbook I picked up," went on the little girl.

"All right, you may," said Mr. Bunker. "I'll get it for you," and he
brought it from the house.

"There it is!" cried Rose. "Wasn't I lucky to pick that up?"

"Indeed you were," said Mary Turner, and then, as she caught sight of
the wallet in Mr. Bunker's hand she exclaimed:

"Why, there it is! There's the very one! Oh, to think that you have
it!"

"Do you know whose this is?" asked Mr. Bunker. "Ever since my little
girl found the wallet we've been trying to find the owner, but we
haven't been able to."

"That's my mother's pocketbook!" cried Mary. "And it's on account of
that she's in the hospital, and ill. Oh, how wonderful!"

"Is this really your mother's purse?" asked Mr. Bunker.

"It surely is," answered the bathing-beach girl. "She had just
sixty-five dollars in it."

"That's just how much was in this!" exclaimed Russ.

"And besides," went on Mary, "I know the pocketbook. It has a little
tear in one corner, and the clasp is bent."

"That's right," said Mr. Bunker.

"And," went on Mary, "besides the sixty-five dollars there was a funny
Chinese coin with a square hole in the middle. Did you find that in the
purse?"

"Yes," exclaimed Aunt Jo, "there was a Chinese coin in the pocketbook!
That proves it must be your mother's pocketbook."

"I'm sure of it," said Mary. "Oh, how glad she'll be that it is found,
and the money, too. That is--if we can have it back," she said softly.

"Have it back? Of course you may!" cried Mr. Bunker. "If it is your
mother's we want you to have it. Was there anything else in the purse
when your mother lost it?"

"Yes," Mary said, "there was a letter from my brother, but part of it
was torn off," and she spoke of what the note had in it. Then they were
all sure it was Mrs. Turner's purse.

The letter, from which the lower part had been torn, was from Mary's
brother John. He was a soldier in the army. His mother had written,
telling him that her brother, Mary and John's "Uncle Jack," had sent the
money to her, and that she was going to spend it in trying to get a rest
of a month, as she was very tired from overwork.

But the pocketbook had been