But now—I'm sure I saw it; do get a match, Noël, there's a dear."
"What did you see?" asked Noël, beginning to go for the matches very slowly.
"Something bright, away in the corner under the board against the beam."
"Perhaps it was a rat's eye," Noël said, "or a snake's," and we did not put our heads quite so close to the hole till he came back with the matches.
Then I struck a match, and Alice cried, "There it is!"
And there it was, and it was a half-sovereign, partly dusty and partly bright. We think perhaps a mouse, disturbed by the carpets being taken up, may have brushed the dust of years from part of the half-sovereign with his tail. We can't imagine how it came there, only Dora thinks she remembers once when H. O. was very little Mother gave him some money to hold, and he dropped it, and it rolled all over the floor. So we think perhaps this was part of it. We were very glad. H. O. wanted to go out at once and buy a mask he had seen for fourpence. It had been a shilling mask, but now it was going very cheap because Guy Fawkes' Day was over, and it was a little cracked at the top.
