either Mom Beck or
Cindy to help you hunt," she called after them. "They have all they can
attend to to-day."

"Let's see that verse again, Rob," said Lloyd, as they went out of the
library into the drawing-room. He fumbled in several pockets and finally
produced the card.

"I know a bank where the wild thyme grows.
Unseen it lies, unsung by bard.
Something keeps watch there, no man knows,
And over your gift it's standing guard."

As on Christmas Day, the only bank the verse suggested was in the
conservatory, a long, narrow ledge of ferns and maidenhair, green with
overhanging vines and graceful fronds. For nearly half an hour they
poked around in it, lifting the ferns from the warm, moist earth to see
if anything lay hidden at their roots. It was like April in the
conservatory, steamy and warm, and the fragrance of hyacinths and white
violets made it a delightful place in which to linger.

"Bank--bank--" repeated Lloyd, puzzling over the verse again, when they
had given up the search in the conservatory and gone back to the
drawing-room. "It might mean a savings-bank, but there hasn't been one
in the house since that little red tin one of mine that you dropped into
the well with my three precious dimes in it. I've felt all these yeahs
that you owed me thirty cents."

"Now, Lloyd Sherman, there's no use in bringing up that old quarrel
again," he laughed. "You know we were playing that robbers were coming,
and we had to lower our gold and jewels into the well, and you tied the
fishing-line around the bank your own self. So I am not to blame if the
knot came untied at the very first jerk. We've wasted enough breath
arguing that point to start a small cyclone."

They laughed again over the recollection of their old quarrel, then Rob
read the verse once more. Presently he stopped drumming on the table
with his thumbs, and said, slowly, as if trying to recall something long
forgotten: "Don't you remember,--it seems ages before we dropped your
red bank in the well,--that I had a remarkable penny savings-bank? It
was some sort of a slot machine in the shape of a little iron dog. Daddy
brought it to me from New York. There was some kind of an indicator on
the side of it that looked like the face of a watch. That was my
introduction to puns, for Daddy said it was a _watch_ dog, made to guard
my pennies. Surely you haven't forgotten old Watch, for after the
indicator was brok