“La, mamma, papa says that often.”
“Oh, that accounts for it. I like the phrase very much. I wish I could think I deserved it. At any rate, I will be as good as my word for once; you shall have a key of the gate.”
The boy clapped his hands with delight. The key was sent for, and, meantime, she told him one reason why she had trusted him with it was because he had been as good as his word about the stable.
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 grass 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.”