e and
pleasure at several things having, as they called it, "come back again;"
in other words, having been found in their proper places. And at last on
the discovery of a "completely lost" treasure--I think it was Leonard's
pocket microscope--in a place where he "knew" he had looked in vain, he
burst into his mother's room with sparkling eyes.

"Mamma," he exclaimed, "do you know this house really is bewitched?
Fancy my having found my microscope just where I looked for it
yesterday. And not only that, ever so many other things have turned up.
And when we wake in the morning the room doesn't look a bit the same as
it does at night. All our things are as neat as can be, and everything
ready, however we pitch them about at night."

Mamma listened and said nothing.

"You don't believe me, I suppose," said Leonard.

"I quite believe that a tidy fairy would find plenty to do in your room,
if such a being existed," she said.

[Illustration]

"But all boys are untidy," said Leonard. "I don't think
we're--well,"--for visions of really terrible chaos rose before his eyes
as he spoke--"well, not _much_ worse than others. But I know what I'll
do," he added to himself. "I'll keep awake to-night and watch."

For a wonder he was able to keep his resolution. He was not _quite_
asleep, though David had been snoring for some time, when he was roused
by the door softly opening, and a figure with a shaded light, glided
into the room. Leonard, though at first a very little frightened, kept
his presence of mind, and neither called out nor started up, but lay
still as if asleep. But soon, as he watched the figure moving about,
rearranging the untidy heaps of clothes, picking up towels and
handkerchiefs, putting boots and shoes neatly together in pairs--all so
quickly and deftly, that it might indeed have been a fairy's work, a new
feeling overcame him.

"Mamma," he cried--for mamma he soon saw it was--and his voice woke
David too, "it is you then--you who are the good fairy! It is a shame
for _you_ to have such trouble for us. Oh, mamma, dear, I _am_ ashamed,"
and out of bed sprang Leonard and David, and set to work with a will to
help their mother, in what certainly should not have been left for her
to do.

"We will never be so untidy again, mamma, _never_," said both boys.

"And it will save yourselves and other people a great deal of
discomfort, of worse than discomfort, indeed," she replied.

"But, mamma, untidiness isn't s