the tree than I. 

 Prompted by a sudden conviction, I dropped my rod and began to run. Immediately Lisbeth began running, too. I threw away my creel and sprinted for all I was worth. I had earned some small fame at this sort of thing in my university days, yet I arrived at the tree with only a very few yards to spare. Throwing myself upon my knees, I commenced a feverish search, and presently—more by good fortune than any thing else—my random fingers encountered a soft, silken bundle. When Lisbeth came up, flushed and panting, I held them in my hands. 

 "Give them to me!" she cried. 

 "I'm sorry—" 

 "Please," she begged. 

 "I'm very sorry—" 

 "Mr. Brent." said Lisbeth, drawing her self up, "I'll trouble you for my—them." 

 "Pardon me, Lisbeth," I answered, "but if I remember anything of the law of 'treasure-trove' one of these should go to the Crown, and one belongs to me." 

 Lisbeth grew quite angry—one of her few bad traits. 

 "You will give them up at once—immediately? 

 "On the contrary,"  I said very gently, "seeing the Crown can have no use for one, I shall keep them both to dream over when the nights are long and lonely." 

 Lisbeth actually stamped her foot at me, and I tucked "them" into my pocket. 

 "How did you know they—they were here?" she inquired after a pause. 

 "I was directed to a tree with 'stickie-out' branches," I answered. 

 "Oh, that Imp!" she exclaimed, and stamped her foot again. 

 "Do you know, I've grown quite attached to that nephew of mine already?" I said. 

 "He's not a nephew of yours," cried Lisbeth quite hotly. 

 "Not legally, perhaps; that is where you might be of such assistance to us Lisbeth. A boy with only an aunt here and there is unbalanced, so to speak; he requires the stronger influence of an uncle. Not," I continued hastily, "that 

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