E. Nesbit

“ So they sat still, all but their tongues.
"Is he in the past?" said Elfrida; "because if he is, it wasn't much good our writing to him."
"You hold your little tongues," said the Mouldiwarp, "and keep your little mouths shut, and your little eyes open, and wish well to the white magic. There never was a magic yet," the mole went on, "that was the worse for being well-wished."
"May I say something," said Elfrida, "without its stopping the magic?" ”

“ You—but we are in a frightful hurry."
"So you be always," said the white Mouldiwarp, suddenly appearing between them on the yellowy dry grass. "Well, well! Youth's the season for silliness. What's to do now? I be turble tired of all this. I wish I'd only got to give ye the treasure and go my ways. You don't give a poor Mouldiwarp a minute's rest. You do terrify me same's flies, you do."
"Is there any other way," said Elfrida, "to get back into the past? We can't find the door now."
"Course you can't," said the mole. "That's a chance gone, and gone for ever. ”

“ Now, if you sit perfectly silent for a long time and look at the sea, or the sky, or the running water of a river, something happens to you—a sort of magic. Not the violent magic that makes the kind of adventure that I have been telling you about, but a kind of gentle but very strong inside magic, that makes things clear and shows you what things are important, and what are not. ”

“ I believe they like us because we're Ardens. Or is it because Edred's a lord?"
"We must find the treasure," said Edred, looking as he always did when he was very much in earnest, so like his father that Aunt Edith could hardly bear it—"so as to be able to look after our people properly."
"And to kick out the Tallow King," said Elfrida.
"But you won't be discontented if you don't find it," said Aunt Edith. "It's only a sort of game really. No one I ever knew ever found a treasure. And think what we've found already! Arden Castle instead of Sea View Terrace—and the lodgers. Good-night, chicks." ”

“ Elfrida and Edred took the prints into the parlour, which was now neat as a new pin, and smelt almost too much of beeswax and turpentine, spread them on the polished oval dining-table and gloated over them.
"You can see every little bit exactly right," said Elfrida. "They're a little tiny bit muzzy. I expect our distance wasn't right or something, but that only makes them look more like real pictures, and us having printed them on paper that's too big makes it more pictury too. And any one who knew how buildings are built would know how to set it up. ”

“ Don't you see, it's the stream that runs through the smuggler's cave? and they were smuggling then for all they were worth."
"That's clever of you," said Elfrida.
"Well, I bet we find traces of its existence, when we've found the treasure. Come on; let's try the chests again. We'll put on the first things we find, and chance it, this time. There's nothing to stop us. We haven't quarrelled or anything." ”

“ He's got so tallowy that Arden land isn't good enough for him. Old Beale told us. And, I say, Auntie, we'll rebuild the castle, too, won't we, and mend the holes in the thatch—where the rain comes in—in people's cottages, I mean."
"Have you been much into people's cottages?" Aunt Edith asked anxiously—with the strange fear of infection which seems a part of a grown-up's nature.
"Every one in the village, I think," said Elfrida cheerfully. "Old Beale told us we ought to—in case we found the treasure—so as to know what to do. The people are such dears. ”

“ Honeysett called "words" about the matter later; for next moment both said, "The films!" and rushed to the kitchen—just in time to see the kitchen fire enlivened by that peculiar crackling flare which fire and films alone can produce. ”