ked forward to with eagerness and
delight during the past weeks, but when it really came it was even more
satisfactory. When Mr and Mrs Hawthorne had left home the museum was
a dusty neglected place which no one cared to enter; its very name
seemed to mean trouble and disgrace; its empty shelves were like a
painful reproach.

How different it looked now! Bright, clean, prosperous, with not a
speck of dust anywhere, and as full as it could be of really interesting
specimens. The proud little owners displayed its treasures eagerly, and
there was a great deal to be told of how Dr Budge did this, and found
that; his name came so often that Mrs Hawthorne said:

"I think it ought to be called the `Budge' Museum, for the doctor seems
to have had a great deal to do with it."

"He's had everything to do with it," said David; "but you see, we helped
him first to find his jackdaw. That's how it all began."

"Well," said Mr Hawthorne putting his hand on Ambrose's shoulder, "I
think it all began in another way. I hear that Dr Budge has had a good
and industrious pupil while I have been away, and that has made him so
willing to help you. I know now that I can trust Ambrose to do his
best, even though he cannot quite learn Latin in a month."

There was only just room in the museum for the two boys and their father
and mother, but the other children stood outside peeping in at the open
door, and adding remarks from time to time.

"You didn't present mother with the key," said Nancy, "and she hasn't
declared it open."

"Here it is!" said David hurriedly. He pulled a large rusty key out of
his pocket.

"It's the apple-closet key _really_," he said in a low tone to his
mother, "this door hasn't got one. You must just pretend to give it a
sort of twist."

The party squeezed itself into the passage again, and Mrs Hawthorne
with a flourish of the big key threw open the door and exclaimed:

"I declare this museum to be open, and that it is to be henceforth known
as the _Mary Hawthorne Museum_."

The evening that followed the opening of the museum was counted by the
children as one of the very nicest they had ever had. It was celebrated
by sitting up to supper with their father and mother, and by telling and
hearing all that had passed while they had been away.

"Nancy," said Pennie to her sister when it was all over and the two
little girls were in bed, "all our plans are finished; we've done all we
can for Kettles, an