but
they were not to know. Aunt Fanny and their mother, after a great deal
of nodding of heads together, and laughing and whispering, got this
mysterious affair settled to their satisfaction, and then took leave of
each other. Aunt Fanny kissed Helen, and George, too, in spite of his
blushes, and told them to bottle up their patience so that it would last
for one whole week, observing that she was thankful that curiosity was
not made of gunpowder, and there was no danger of their blowing up
before the great secret came out.

It is very seldom that you hear of such remarkably good children as
George and Helen were for the next few days. They were really something
astonishing! George did not slam the door more than once or twice in a
whole day; and one morning when he was going to ride on the bannisters
as usual, he said "Oh, I forgot!" and immediately walked down stairs as
slowly and gravely as a grandfather.

As for Helen, she was, if possible, still more wonderful, for she
learned "six times" in the multiplication table, and said it straight
on, and skipping, and even backward, in a way that surprised her
teacher. Helen could say "twice one" up to "five times twelve," very
glibly, but "six times" never would stay in her head, she said;
especially "six times nine." She always said it was "seventy-two," or
"sixty-three," or "eighty-one," at a desperate venture, and was always
wrong. Now she knew, and meant to remember; and would pack away the fact
that "six times nine are fifty-four," in a comfortable place in the very
middle of her head, to be ready for any one that wanted to know it.

At last the next Friday came, and just before the children retired for
the night, their mother said:

"Something came for you to-day. Guess what it is?"

Up they both sprang, exclaiming, "Something for us? Oh, that is so very
delightful! What can it be?"

"My instructions are, to put it either in George's sock or in Helen's
stocking, after you are fast asleep. It is for both of you, and I leave
you to decide where it shall be put."

"In my sock!" shouted George.

"In my stocking!" cried Helen.

"Oh certainly, I forgot!" exclaimed George, generously; "in Helen's
stocking."

"No, mamma," said Helen, "in George's sock."

"Stocking!" cried George.

"Sock!" cried Helen.

They kept this up about a dozen times, laughing and jumping about the
room like two crazy monkeys, their mamma and papa laughing too, till
all their faces w