E. Nesbit

“ There was time, therefore, to pull oneself together, to listen to the skylarks, and to smell the bean-flowers, and to wonder how one could have been such a duffer as to be scared by a "rat or something." Also there were some bits of sandwich and crumbled cake, despised at dinner-time, but now, somehow, tasting quite different. These helped to pass the time till the sun almost seemed to rest on a brown shoulder of the downs, that looked as though it were shrugging itself up to meet the round red ball that the evening mists had made of the sun. ”

“ It was a pretty house, and it would have been a pleasant house but for one thing–the lodgers. For I cannot conceal from you any longer that Edred Arden lived with his aunt, and that his aunt let lodgings. Letting lodgings is one of the most unpleasant of all possible ways of earning your living, and I advise you to try every other honest way of earning your living before you take to that.
Because people who go to the seaside and take lodgings seem, somehow, much harder to please than the people who go to hotels. They want ever so much more waiting on ”

“ You can't if you steer."
"Yes, I can!"
"No, you can't!"
"Yes, I can!"
"Well, do, then!" said Elfrida; "and while you're doing it—I know you can't—I shall dig in the garden and find a gold-mine, and Aunt Edith will be rolling in money when you come back, and she won't want your silly old ship."
"Spelling next," said Aunt Edith. "How do you spell 'disagreeable'?"
"Which of us?" asked Edred acutely.
"Both," said Aunt Edith, trying to look very severe.
When you are a child you always dream of your ship coming home–of having a hundred pounds, or a thousand, or a million pounds to spend as you like. ”

“ When there were lodgers—and there nearly always were, for the house was comfortable, and people who had been once came again–the children and their aunt had to live in the very top and the very bottom of the house–in the attics and the basement, in fact.
When there were no lodgers they used all the rooms in turn, to keep them aired. But the children liked the big basement parlour room best, because there all the furniture had belonged to dead-and-gone Ardens, and all the pictures on the walls were of Ardens dead and gone. ”

“ It doesn't do a bit of good, and it sometimes prevents their giving you half-crowns when they leave."
"I do love it when they go," said Elfrida.
"Yes," said her aunt. "A cab top-heavy with luggage, the horse's nose turned stationward, it's a heavenly sight–when the bill is paid and—But, then, I'm just as glad to see the luggage coming. Chickens! when my ship comes home we'll go and live on a desert island where there aren't any cabs, and we won't have any lodgers in our cave."
"When I grow up," said Edred, "I shall go across the sea and look for your ship and bring it home. ”

“ Edred insisted, though no one had suggested that he would be mean and sneaky. "We'll tell auntie directly she gets back."
"Of course," said Elfrida, rather relieved, for she had not felt at all sure that Edred meant to do this.
"After all," said Edred, "it's our castle. We ought to go and see the cradle of our race. That's what it calls it in 'Cliffgate and its Envions.' I say, let's call it a pilgrimage. The satchels will do for packs, and we can get halfpenny walking-sticks with that penny of yours. We can put peas in our shoes, if you like," he added generously. ”

“ So they left their satchels lying on the short turf, that was half wild thyme, and went down. But they were not quite quick enough; before they could get to him the old man had come through the field of young corn, clambered over a stile, and vanished between the high hedges of a deep-sunk lane. So over the stile and down into the lane went the children, and caught up with the old man just as he had clicked his garden gate behind him and had turned to go up the bricked path between beds of woodruff, and anemones, and narcissus, and tulips of all colours. ”

“ And when you have dreamed of your million pounds, or your thousand, or your hundred, you spend happy hour on hour in deciding what presents you will buy for each of the people you are fond of, and in picturing their surprise and delight at your beautiful presents and your wonderful generosity. ”

“ I think very few of us spend our dream fortunes entirely on ourselves. Of course, we buy ourselves a motor-bicycle straight away, and footballs and bats–and dolls with real hair, and real china tea-sets, and large boxes of mixed chocolates, and "Treasure Island," and all the books that Mrs. Ewing ever wrote, but, when we have done that we begin to buy things for other people. ”

“ And then came the news that father and Uncle Jim were dead, and for a time the light of life went out in Cliff House.
This was two years ago; but the children had never got used to the lodgers. They hated them. At first they had tried to be friendly with the lodgers' children, but they soon found that the lodgers' children considered Edred and Elfrida very much beneath them, and looked down on them accordingly. And very often the lodgers' children were the sort of children on whom anybody might have looked down, if it were right and kind to look down on any one. ”

“ It is a beautiful dream, but too often, by the time it comes true–up to a hundred pounds or a thousand–we forget what we used to mean to do with our money, and spend it all in stocks and shares, and eligible building sites, and fat cigars and fur coats. ”

“ Only wear your old clothes, and always keep in sight of the road. "Yes; you can have a whole holiday. And now to bed. Oh, there's that bell again! Poor, dear Eliza."
A Clapham cub, belonging to one of the lodgers, happened to be going up to bed just as Edred and Elfrida came through the baize door that shut off the basement from the rest of the house. He put his tongue out through the banisters at the children of the house and said, "Little slaveys." ”

“ Even Edred's spirits sank. "It's no go. It will take us years to look in them all," he said.
"We may as well look at some of them," said Elfrida, always less daring, but more persevering than her brother. She sat down on the worn carpet. and began to read the names on the backs of the books nearest to her. "Burton's Atomy of Melon something," she read, and "Locke on Understanding," and many other dull and wearying titles. But none of the books seemed at all likely to contain a spell for finding treasure. ”