The Wouldbegoods. by

The Wouldbegoods (1899) recounts stories about the Bastables, a fictional middle-class family that has fallen on relatively hard times. This is the second story in The Bastables Series. Reginald Bathurst Birch (May 2, 1856 - June 17, 1943) was an English-American artist and illustrator. He was best known for his depiction of the titular hero of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1886 novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started a craze in juvenile fashion. While his illustrated corpus has eclipsed his other work, he was also an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes. Edith Nesbit wrote or collaborated on more than 60 books of fiction for children. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society. Two impoverished children, Edred and Elfrida Arden, inherit the decrepit Arden Castle and search for the lost family fortune that will allow them to rebuild it. With the assistance of the magical Mouldiwarp, they travel back in time to earlier periods of English history, searching for clues. Hardling's Luck is a sequel to The House of Arden, a great favorite of Nesbit fans; it's a story of injustice, poverty, deformity, magic, romance, suspense, sacrifice, and triumph over adversity that comes to its point with a fateful twist.