u pinched me, and yet that I might be sound asleep all
the while. It really is dreadfully confusing, when you come to think
of it, this way in which you can have dreams inside of each other, like
little Chinese boxes, and never truly know whether you're asleep or
awake. I don't like it at all."

Without meaning to, Susan frequently talks quite in the manner of a
German metaphysician.

The next day we received a letter from Gregory Wilkinson that we hoped,
as we opened it, would clear up the mystery. But before we had finished
it we were in such a state of excitement that we quite forgot that there
was any mystery to clear up. My cousin wrote from his home in New York,
and made no allusion whatever to a second visit to Lewes, still less to
a second expedition with Old Jacob to Rehoboth Bay. After speaking very
nicely of the pleasant time that he had passed with us, he continued:

"I enclose a memorandum that seems to have a bearing upon the
whereabouts of the hidden family fortune. I am sorry, for Susan's sake,
that it is neither invisible nor undecipherable; but I think that for
practical purposes visible ink and readable English are more useful. I
advise you to attend to the matter at once. It may rain."

The enclosure was a scrap of paper, so brown with age that it looked
as though it had been dipped in coffee, on which was written, in
astonishingly black ink, this brief but clear direction:

_Sheer uppe ye planke midwai atween ye oake and ye hiccorie saplyngs 7
fathom Est of Pequinky crik on ye baye. Ytte is all there_.

There was no date, no signature, to this paper, but neither
Susan nor I doubted for a moment that it was the clew to my
great-great-great-uncle's missing fortune. With a heart almost too full
for utterance, Susan went straight across the room to the big dictionary
(Gregory Wilkinson had given it to us at Christmas, with a handy iron
stand to keep in on), and in a trembling voice the dear child told me in
one single breath that a fathom was a measure of length containing six
feet or two yards, generally used in ascertaining the depth of the sea.
Then, without waiting to close the dictionary, she throw herself into my
arms and asked me to kiss her hard!

Susan wanted to start right off that afternoon--she was determined to
go with me this time, and I had not the heart to refuse her; but I
represented to her that night would be upon us before we could get
across to the bay, and that we had better