CHAPTER VI.
THE SHADOW OF A SHADE.
"The world would lose its finest joys Without its little girls and boys; Their careless glee and simple ruth, And innocence and trust and truth; Ah! what would your poor poet do Without such little folk as you ?" Locker.
"Well, anyhow," observed Mr.Nicholas Swan, the gardener, when the children came home and told him how Peter had cried--"anyhow, there's one less on you now to run over my borders.

He was as meek as Moses, that child was, when first he came, but you soon made him as audacious as any of you." "So they did, Nicholas dear," said one of the twins, a tall, dark haired child.
"Oh, it's Nicholas _dear_, is it, Miss Barbara?
Well, now, what next ?" "Why, the key of the fruit-house--we want the key." "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.