es
against their hillock--"like sand castles," as Elfrida observed. It
spread out in a lake, wider and wider; but presently gathered itself
together and began to creep down the hill, winding in and out among the
hillocks in an ever-deepening stream.

"Come on, childie, let's make for the moat. We shall get there first, if
we run our hardest," Elfrida's father said. And he ran, with his little
daughter's hand in his.

They got there first. The stream, knowing its own mind better and
better as it recognized its old road, reached the Castle, and by
dinner-time all the grass round the Castle was under water. By tea-time
the water in the moat was a foot or more deep, and when they got up next
morning the Castle was surrounded by a splendid moat fifty feet wide,
and a stream ran from it, in a zigzag way it is true, but still it ran,
to the lower arch under the mound, and disappeared there, to run
underground into the sea. They enjoyed the moat for one whole day, and
then the stream was dammed again and condemned to run underground till
next spring, by which time the walls of the Castle would have been
examined and concrete laid to their base, lest the water should creep
through and sap the foundations.

"It's going to be a very costly business, it seems," Elfrida heard her
father say to the engineer, "and I don't know that I ought to do it. But
I can't resist the temptation. I shall have to economize in other
directions, that's all."

When Elfrida had heard this she went to Dickie and Edred, who were
fishing in the cave, and told them what she had heard.

"And we _must_ have another try for the treasure," she said. "Whoever
has the Castle will want to restore it; they've got those pictures of it
as it used to be. And then there are all the cottages to rebuild. Dear
Dickie, you're so clever, do think of some way to find the treasure."

So Dickie thought.

And presently he said--

"You once saw the treasure being carried to the secret room--in a
picture, didn't you?"

They told him yes.

"Then why didn't you go back to that time and see it really?"

"We hadn't the clothes. Everything in our magic depended on clothes."

"Mine doesn't. Shall we go?"

"There were lots of soldiers in the picture," said Edred, "and
fighting."

"I'm not afraid of soldiers," said Elfrida very quickly, "and you're not
afraid of _anything_, Edred--you know you aren't."

"You can't be or you couldn't have come after me right into the