“No, I don’t,” returned Ernie, impetuously. “There is a pile of magazines in the workshop that hasn’t been looked over since the year 1, Tecpatl! Mother told me weeks ago that she wanted them sent to the Philippines. She asked me to go through them then. So, come on.” “Very well,” I answered, meekly. And a few moments later Ernie and I were seated on the workshop floor, each with our separate bunch of dusty literature. “Here’s that nice story about the rogue elephant,” began Ernie, comfortably. “I don’t think we can let that go. And, oh! here’s the copy of _Scribbler’s_ with _The Magic Ring_. Do you remember, we read it aloud one Christmas? It is about the two little boys who went to the Circus.” “I thought,” returned I, severely, “that we came up here to get these magazines ready to send to the Philippines?” “So we did,” mumbled Ernie, “but if we don’t go through them, how are we to know which ones we ought to send?” At that moment I came upon an odd instalment of _The Refugees_, a thrilling historical romance that had haunted my memory for years. “Of course,” I agreed, with suspicious alacrity; and after that we sat together on the workshop floor, and read and read; till the shadows began to steal out from the corners, the room grew dusk and gloomy, and I looked up with straining eyes to remark,— “Ernestine, it is simply provoking! Why will editors always break off at the most exciting spot? The Indians are attacking the blockhouse, I can’t find the next instalment, and——” “_Whoop-ee!_” rang the shrill war-cry. “_Whoop! Whoop! hurrah! hur-roo-o_!” For a moment I glared about me in terror. Was I in the workshop or the Canadian backwoods? Was the wildly whirling figure that pranced and capered about me, now advancing, now retreating, my own little sister Ernie, or a bloodthirsty Iroquois savage? “I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” shrilled the jubilant song. “After all my hunts, Elizabeth! In the cuckoo-clock, under Hazard’s bed!—And to think we _nearly_ sent it to Manila!” “What are you talking about, Ernestine?” I demanded, severely. “No matter what you have found, you ought to be ashamed to shout so! You know that Miss Brown has a headache, and besides I quite mistook you for an Indian!” Ernie dropped down beside me, and flung her arms about my neck. “Honey,” she breathed,—“it’s the _contract_,—the Dump-Cart Contract, at last! Stuck between the pages of an old copy of _Cayler’s Engineering Magazine_! And to think, we almost sent it _to Manila_!” So! I understood. The room began to swim about me. My head sank limply to Ernie’s supporting shoulder. [Illustration: I stood in the kitchen doorway and listened] “Don’t you dare go and faint on me!” threatened that unsympathetic young person. “If you do, I’ll spill water over your new rosebud stock. I mean it, Elizabeth!” “You shan’t!” I retorted; and sat up, clutching my precious embroidered collar with one hand, while I extended the other for the contract.