134 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



"It only shows," he explained, "what thoughtful 

 chaps pirates have become. They knew you could n 't 

 use a bag of doubloons nowadays, but that sweet 

 chocolate always comes in handy. " 



Hidden treasure is not a thing to be investigated 

 scientifically, nor can anything restore a glamour 

 once gone. Perhaps so unconsciously reasoned the 

 Band as they followed the Captain down the steep 

 stairs and the steeper ladder. Through the lilac 

 bushes he led them around to the far side of the 

 House. There the stairway had disappeared, and 

 most of the sagging floor-beams were broken. A 

 limb of a nearby apple tree had thrust its way above 

 the lilac thicket, until it nearly touched the ledge of 

 a window half hidden by the boughs. 



Up the apple tree the Captain clambered, followed 

 by the Band, and walking out on the limb, led the 

 way across the window-ledge into a tiny room. 

 For some unknown reason, amid the general wreckage 

 and ruin of the House, this room still stood untouched 

 and with its flooring unbroken. Even the walls, 

 plastered a deep blue, showed scarcely a crack on 

 their surface. Best of all, fronting the open dormer 

 of the window, was a long, deep settee, with curly, 

 carved legs and a bent, comfortable back. Its seat 

 was so wide that the Corporal 's legs stuck out straight 

 in front of her when she sat down with the rest of 

 the Band at the end of the line. 



Framed in the broken sheathing and bleached 

 stone of the window-opening, there stretched out 

 before them a vista of little valleys and round 



