enclature--'there's dandelions, and all manner of games.'

'Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?'

'Prime,' said the turnkey.

'Was father ever there?'

'Hem!' coughed the turnkey. 'O yes, he was there, sometimes.'

'Is he sorry not to be there now?'

'N-not particular,' said the turnkey.

'Nor any of the people?' she asked, glancing at the listless crowd
within. 'O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?'

At this difficult point of the conversation Bob gave in, and changed the
subject to hard-bake: always his last resource when he found his little
friend getting him into a political, social, or theological corner.
But this was the origin of a series of Sunday excursions that these two
curious companions made together. They used to issue from the lodge on
alternate Sunday afternoons with great gravity, bound for some meadows
or green lanes that had been elaborately appointed by the turnkey in
the course of the week; and there she picked grass and flowers to bring
home, while he smoked his pipe. Afterwards, there were tea-gardens,
shrimps, ale, and other delicacies; and then they would come back hand
in hand, unless she was more than usually tired, and had fallen asleep
on his shoulder.

In those early days, the turnkey first began profoundly to consider
a question which cost him so much mental labour, that it remained
undetermined on the day of his death. He decided to will and bequeath
his little property of savings to his godchild, and the point arose how
could it be so 'tied up' as that only she should have the benefit of
it? His experience on the lock gave him such an acute perception of the
enormous difficulty of 'tying up' money with any approach to tightness,
and contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that
through a series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to
every new insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in
and out.

'Supposing,' he would say, stating the case with his key on the
professional gentleman's waistcoat; 'supposing a man wanted to leave his
property to a young female, and wanted to tie it up so that nobody else
should ever be able to make a grab at it; how would you tie up that
property?'

'Settle it strictly on herself,' the professional gentleman would
complacently answer.

'But look here,' quoth the turnkey. 'Supposing she had, say a brother,
say a father, say a husband, who would be likely to make a grab at that
property