"Key, indeed! Now, there's where it is. Make a wry path through your
fields, and still you'll walk in it! I never ought to ha' got in the
habit of lending you that key. What's the good of a key if a man can
never keep it in his pocket? When I lived up at Mr. Daniel Mortimer's,
the children never had my key--never."

"Well, come with us, then, and give us out the pears yourself. We won't
take one."

Nicholas, with a twin on each side, and the other children bringing up
the rear, was now walked off to the fruit-house, grumbling as he went.

"I left Mr. Mortimer's, I did, because I couldn't stand the children;
and now the world's a deal fuller of 'em than it was then. No, Miss
Gladys, I'm not a-going any faster; I wouldn't run, if it was ever so.
When the contrac' was signed of my wages, it was never wrote down that I
had to run at any time."

And having now reached the fruit-house, he was just pulling out his big
key, when something almost like shame showed itself in his ruddy face,
as a decided and somewhat mocking voice addressed him.

"Well, Nicholas, I'm just amazed at ye! I've lived upward of sixty years
in this island, Scotland and England both, and never did I see a man got
over so by children in my life! Talking of my niece's children, are
ye--Mrs. Daniel Mortimer's? I wonder at ye--they were just nothing to
these."

Here Mr. Swan, having unlocked the door, dived into the fruit-house, and
occupied himself for some moments in recovering his self-possession and