Part 72 (2/2)

The key was brought, and she held it up half playfully, and said, ”There, sir, I deliver you this upon conditions: you must only use it when the weather is quite dry, because the gra.s.s in the meadow is longer, and will be wet. Do you promise?”

”Yes, mamma.”

”And you must always lock the gate when you come back, and bring the key to one place--let me see--the drawer in the hall table, the one with marble on it; for you know a place for every thing is our rule. On these conditions, I hereby deliver you this magic key, with the right of egress and ingress.”

”Egress and ingress?”

”Egress and ingress.”

”Is that foreign for cowslips, mamma--and oxlips?”

”Ha! ha! the child's head is full of cowslips. There is the dictionary; look out Egress, and afterward look out Ingress.”

When he had added these two words to his little vocabulary, his mother asked him if he would be good enough to tell her why he did not care much about all the beautiful flowers in the garden, and was so excited about cowslips, which appeared to her a flower of no great beauty, and the smell rather sickly, begging his pardon.

This question posed him dreadfully: he looked at her in a sort of comic distress, and then sat gravely down all in a heap, about a yard off, to think.

Finally he turned to her with a wry face, and said, ”Why _do_ I, mamma?”

She smiled deliciously. ”No, no, sir,” said she. ”How can I get inside your little head and tell what is there? There must be a reason, I suppose; and you know you and I are never satisfied till we get at the reason of a thing. But there is no hurry, dear. I give you a week to find it out. Now, run and open the gate--stay, are there any cows in that field?”

”Sometimes, mamma; but they have no horns, you know.”

”Upon your word?”

”Upon my honor. I am not fond of them with horns, myself.”

”Then run away, darling. But you must come and hunt me up, and tell me how you enjoyed yourself, because that makes me happy, you know.”

This is mawkish; but it will serve to show on what terms the woman and boy were.

On second thoughts, I recall that apology, and defy creation. ”THE MAWKISH” is a branch of literature, a great and popular one, and I have neglected it savagely.

Master Compton opened the iron gate, and the world was all before him where to choose.

He chose one of those yellow stripes that had so attracted him. Horror!

it was all b.u.t.tercups and deil a cowslip.

Nevertheless, pursuing his researches, he found plenty of that delightful flower scattered about the meadow in thinner patches; and he gathered a double handful and dirtied his knees.

Returning, thus laden, from his first excursion, he was accosted by a fluty voice.

”Little boy!”

He looked up, and saw a girl standing on the lower bar of a little wooden gate painted white, looking over.

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