e made
her hold her tongue. She did not like being made fun of, and she felt
sure that any reference to what Ida called her "dream" about the
grindstone was certain to be received with nothing but ridicule by both
brother and sister.

In one corner of the tool-house stood Uncle Roger's iron-bound box,
which, since the eventful evening when it was opened, had been banished
from the library in disgrace, Mr. Ormond wishing to put a small bookcase
in the space which the box had hitherto occupied.

Elsie tried to lift the lid, but the two padlocks had been refastened to
prevent their being lost. She sat down on the chest, and began drumming
her feet on the dark oak planks.

"What a disappointment that old box has proved!" thought the girl. "I
wonder if there ever _was_ anything in it. Father seems to think it
couldn't possibly have been opened, but then how did that cork with
Greenworthy's name on it come to be inside? I do wish it had been full
of money. It would have been jolly to have had a real pony, and to have
learned to ride."

"If wishes were horses," runs the old proverb, "then beggars would
ride;" and Elsie had to rest content with a short day-dream, from which
she at length awoke with a little sigh of regret.

An hour or two later, as Guy unstrapped his pile of school books
and flung them down on the breakfast-room table, he referred to the
discovery which had been made earlier in the day.

"The pater can't understand that carving-knife. I wonder how in the
world it got into the pond!"

"Yes, I wonder too," said Ida, rather suspiciously. "And I wonder if
you, Guy, could explain it if you chose."

"I explain it!" exclaimed the boy. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know you _have_ done things like that," returned his sister
calmly. "You smashed a big flower-pot the other day, and threw the
pieces away into the hedge."

"Look here, Ida," cried Guy, with a great show of indignation. "You're
always accusing me of doing things, and it's not fair. The other day
you tried to make out I'd taken cook's methylated spirit when I said
I hadn't. What's the good of a fellow telling the truth if he isn't
believed?"

"Shall I tell you what I think about it?" asked Brian, looking up from
the open book before him, with his finger at the spot where he had left
off reading.

"Yes," was the reply.

"Well, the idea's come into my head that some one was grinding the knife
that night when Elsie woke up and heard the stone t