at football within ten mile. Where's my son William? Hadn't my
match at football, William, within ten mile!"

"That's what I always say, father!" returned the son promptly, and
with great respect. "You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of
the family!"

"Dear!" said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked at
the holly. "His mother--my son William's my youngest son--and I,
have sat among 'em all, boys and girls, little children and babies,
many a year, when the berries like these were not shining half so
bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of 'em are gone;
she's gone; and my son George (our eldest, who was her pride more
than all the rest!) is fallen very low: but I can see them, when I
look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those days; and
I can see him, thank God, in his innocence. It's a blessed thing
to me, at eighty-seven."

The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much
earnestness, had gradually sought the ground.

"When my circumstances got to be not so good as formerly, through
not being honestly dealt by, and I first come here to be
custodian," said the old man, "--which was upwards of fifty years
ago--where's my son William? More than half a century ago,
William!"

"That's what I say, father," replied the son, as promptly and
dutifully as before, "that's exactly where it is. Two times
ought's an ought, and twice five ten, and there's a hundred of