MARY'S MEADOW

 AND

 OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. 

 BY

 JULIANA HORATIA EWING. 

 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W. C. 

 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E. C. 

 BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET. 

 NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 

 [Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee. ]

 * * * * *

CONTENTS. 

MARY'S MEADOW

LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN

GARDEN LORE

SUNFLOWERS AND A RUSHLIGHT

DANDELION CLOCKS

THE TRINITY FLOWER

LADDERS TO HEAVEN

 * * * * *

MARY'S MEADOW. 

PREFACE. 

"MARY'S MEADOW" first appeared in the numbers of _Aunt Judy'sMagazine_ from November 1883 to March 1884. It was the last serialstory which Mrs. EWING wrote, and I believe the subject of it arosefrom the fact that in 1883, after having spent several years in movingfrom place to place, she went to live at Villa Ponente, Taunton, whereshe had a settled home with a garden, and was able to revert to thepractical cultivation of flowers, which had been one of the favouritepursuits of her girlhood. 

The Game of the Earthly Paradise was received with great delight bythe readers of the story; one family of children adopted the word"Mary-meadowing" to describe the work which they did towardsbeautifying hedges and bare places; and my sister received manyletters of inquiry about the various plants mentioned in her tale. These she answered in the correspondence columns of the Magazine, andin July 1884 it was suggested that a "Parkinson Society" should beformed, whose objects were "to search out and cultivate old gardenflowers which have become scarce; to exchange seeds and plants; toplant waste places with hardy flowers; to circulate books on gardeningamongst the Members;" and further, "to try to prevent theextermination of rare wild flowers, as well as of garden treasures. "

Reports of the Society, with correspondence on the exchanges of plantsand books, and quaint local names of flowers, were given in theMagazine until it was brought to a close after Mrs. EWING'S death; butI am glad to say that the Society existed for some years under themanagement of the founder, Miss ALICE SARGANT, and when she wasobliged to relinquish the work it was merged in the "SelborneSociety, " which aims at the preservation of rare species of animals aswell as plants. 

The "Letters from a Little Garden" were published in _Aunt Judy'sMagazine_ between November 1884 and February 1885, and as they, aswell as "Mary's Meadow, " were due to the interest which my sister wastaking in the tending of her own Earthly Paradise, --they are insertedin this volume, although they were left unfinished when the writer wascalled away to be

 "Fast in Thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!"

HORATIA K. F. EDEN. 

_December, 1895. _

 * * * * *

NOTE. --If any readers of "Mary's Meadow" have been as completelypuzzled as the writer was by the title of John Parkinson's old book, it may interest them to know that the question has been raised andanswered in _Notes and Queries_. 

I first saw the _Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris_ at Kew, someyears ago, and was much bewitched by its quaint charm. I grieve to saythat I do not possess it; but an old friend and florist--the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe--was good enough to lend me his copy for reference, and tohim I wrote for the meaning of the title. But his scholarship, andthat of other learned friends, was quite at fault. My old friend'syouthful energies (he will permit me to say that he is ninety-four)were not satisfied to rust in ignorance, and he wrote to _Notes andQueries_ on the subject, and has been twice answered. It is an absurdplay upon words, after the fashion of John Parkinson's day. Paradise, as _Aunt Judy's_ readers may know, is originally an Eastern word, meaning a park, or pleasure-ground. I am ashamed to say that theknowledge of this fact did not help me to the pun. _Paradisi in soleParadisus terrestris_ means Park--in--son's Earthly Paradise!

J. H. E. , _February 1884. _

 * * * * *

 How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are Thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. 

 Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. 

 * * * * *

 O that I once past changing were, Fast in Thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither; Nor doth my flower Want a spring-shower, My sins and I joining together. 

 * * * * *

 These are Thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us see we are but flowers that glide: Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide. Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. 

GEORGE HERBERT. 

 * * * * *

MARY'S MEADOW

CHAPTER I. 

Mother is always trying to make us love our neighbours as ourselves. 

She does so despise us for greediness, or grudging, or snatching, ornot sharing what we have got, or taking the best and leaving the rest, or helping ourselves first, or pushing forward, or praising NumberOne, or being Dogs in the Manger, or anything selfish. And we cannotbear her to despise us!

We despise being selfish, too; but very often we forget. Besides, itis sometimes rather difficult to love your neighbour as yourself whenyou want a thing very much; and Arthur says he believes it isparticularly difficult if it is your next-door-neighbour, and thatthat is why Father and the Old Squire quarrelled about the footpaththrough Mary's Meadow. 

The Old Squire is not really his name, but that is what people callhim. He is very rich. His place comes next to ours, and it is muchbigger, and he has quantities of fields, and Father has only got afew; but there are two fields beyond Mary's Meadow which belong toFather, though the Old Squire wanted to buy them. Father would notsell them, and he says he has a right of way through Mary's Meadow togo to his fields, but the Old Squire says he has nothing of the kind, and that is what they quarrelled about. 

Arthur says if you quarrel, and are too grown-up to punch each other'sheads, you go to law; and if going to law doesn't make it up, youappeal. They went to law, I know, for Mother cried about it; and Isuppose it did not make it up, for the Old Squire appealed. 

After that he used to ride about all day on his grey horse, withSaxon, his yellow bull-dog, following him, to see that we did nottrespass on Mary's Meadow. I think he thought that if we children werethere, Saxon would frighten us, for I do not suppose he knew that weknew him. But Saxon used often to come with the Old Squire's ScotchGardener to see our gardener, and when they were looking at thewall-fruit, Saxon used to come snuffing after us. 

He is the nicest dog I know. He looks very savage, but he is only veryfunny. His lower jaw sticks out, which makes him grin, and some peoplethink he is gnashing his teeth with rage. We think it looks as if hewere laughing--like Mother Hubbard's dog, when she brought home hiscoffin, and he wasn't dead--but it really is only the shape of hisjaw. I loved Saxon the first day I saw him, and he likes me, and licksmy face. But what he likes best of all are Bath Oliver Biscuits. 

One day the Scotch Gardener saw me feeding him, and he pulled his redbeard, and said, "Ye do weel to mak' hay while the sun shines, Saxon, my man. There's sma' sight o' young leddies and sweet cakes at hamefor ye!" And Saxon grinned, and wagged his tail, and the ScotchGardener touched his hat to me, and took him away. 

The Old Squire's Weeding Woman is our nursery-maid's aunt. She is notvery old, but she looks so, because she has lost her teeth, and isbent nearly double. She wears a large hood, and carries a big basket, which she puts down outside the nursery door when she comes to teawith Bessy. If it is a fine afternoon, and we are gardening, she letsus borrow the basket, and then we play at being weeding women in eachother's gardens. 

She tells Bessy about the Old Squire. She says--"He do be a real oldskinflint, the Old Zquire a be!" But she thinks it--"zim as if 'twashaving ne'er a wife nor child for to keep the natur' in 'un, so hisheart do zim to shrivel, like they walnuts Butler tells us of as azets down for desart. The Old Zquire he mostly eats ne'er a one now'steeth be so bad. But a counts them every night when's desart's done. And a keeps 'em till the karnels be mowldy, and a keeps 'em till theybe dry, and a keeps 'em till they be dust; and when the karnels isdust, a cracks aal the lot of 'em when desart's done, zo's no onemayn't have no good of they walnuts, since they be no good to be. "

Arthur can imitate the Weeding Woman exactly, and he can imitate theScotch Gardener too. Chris (that is Christopher, our youngest brother)is very fond of "The Zquire and the Walnuts. " He gets nuts, oranything, like shells or bits of flower-pots, that will break, andsomething to hit with, and when Arthur comes to "_The karnels isdust_, " Chris smashes everything before him, shouting, "_A cracks aalthe lot of em_, " and then he throws the bits all over the place, with"_They be no good to he_. "

Father laughed very much when he heard Arthur do the Weeding Woman, and Mother could not help laughing too; but she did not like it, because she does not like us to repeat servants' gossip. 

The Weeding Woman is a great gossip. She gossips all the time she ishaving her tea, and it is generally about the Old Squire. She used totell Bessy that his flowers bloomed themselves to death, and the fruitrotted on the walls, because he would let nothing be picked, and gavenothing away, except now and then a grand present of fruit to LadyCatherine, for which the old lady returned no thanks, but only a rudemessage to say that his peaches were over-ripe, and he had better havesent the grapes to the Infirmary. Adela asked--"Why is the Old Squireso kind to Lady Catherine?" and Father said--"Because we are so fondof Lords and Ladies in this part of the country. " I thought he meantthe lords and ladies in the hedges, for we are very fond of them. Buthe didn't. He meant real lords and ladies. 

There are splendid lords and ladies in the hedges of Mary's Meadow. Inever can make up my mind when I like them best. In April and May, when they have smooth plum-coloured coats and pale green cowls, andpush up out of last year's dry leaves, or in August and September, when their hoods have fallen away, and their red berries shine throughthe dusty grass and nettles that have been growing up round them allthe summer out of the ditch. 

Flowers were one reason for our wanting to go to Mary's Meadow. Another reason was the nightingale. There was one that used always tosing there, and Mother had made us a story about it. 

We are very fond of fairy books, and one of our greatest favourites isBechstein's _As Pretty as Seven. _ It has very nice pictures, and weparticularly like "The Man in the Moon, and How He Came There;" butthe story doesn't end well, for he came there by gathering sticks onSunday, and then scoffing about it, and he has been there ever since. But Mother made us a new fairy tale about the nightingale in Mary'sMeadow being the naughty woodcutter's only child, who was turned intoa little brown bird that lives on in the woods, and sits on a tree onsummer nights, and sings to its father up in the moon. 

But after our Father and the Old Squire went to law, Mother told us wemust be content with hearing the nightingale from a distance. We didnot really know about the lawsuit then, we only understood that theOld Squire was rather crosser than usual; and we rather resented beingwarned not to go into Mary's Meadow, especially as Father kept sayingwe had a perfect right so to do. I thought that Mother was probablyafraid of Saxon being set at us, and of course I had no fears abouthim. Indeed, I used to wish that it could happen that the Old Squire, riding after me as full of fury as King Padella in the _Rose and theRing_, might set Saxon on me, as the lions were let loose to eat thePrincess Rosalba. "Instead of devouring her with their great teeth, itwas with kisses they gobbled her up. They licked her pretty feet, they nuzzled their noses in her lap, " and she put her arms "roundtheir tawny necks and kissed them. " Saxon gobbles us with kisses, andnuzzles his nose, and we put our arms round his tawny neck. What asurprise it would be to the Old Squire to see him! And then I wonderedif my feet were as pretty as Rosalba's, and I thought they were, and Iwondered if Saxon would lick them, supposing that by any possibilityit could ever happen that I should be barefoot in Mary's Meadow at themercy of the Old Squire and his bull-dog. 

One does not, as a rule, begin to go to bed by letting down one'shair, and taking off one's shoes and stockings. But one night I wassilly enough to do this, just to see if I looked (in the mirror) atall like the picture of Rosalba in the _Rose and the Ring. _ I wastrying to see my feet as well as my hair, when I heard Arthur jumpingthe three steps in the middle of the passage between his room andmine. I had only just time to spring into the window-seat, and tuck myfeet under me, when he gave a hasty knock, and bounced in with histelescope in his hand. 

"Oh, Mary, " he cried, "I want you to see the Old Squire, with agreat-coat over his evening clothes, and a squash hat, marching up anddown Mary's Meadow. "

And he pulled up my blind, and threw open the window, and arranged thetelescope for me. 

It was a glorious night. The moon was rising round and large out ofthe mist, and dark against its brightness I could see the figure ofthe Old Squire pacing the pathway over Mary's Meadow. 

Saxon was not there; but on a slender branch of a tree in the hedgerowsat the nightingale, singing to comfort the poor, lonely old Man inthe Moon. 

CHAPTER II. 

Lady Catherine is Mother's aunt by marriage, and Mother is one of thefew people she is not rude to. 

She is very rude, and yet she is very kind, especially to the poor. But she does kind things so rudely, that people now and then wish thatshe would mind her own business instead. Father says so, though Motherwould say that that is gossip. But I think sometimes that Mother isthinking of Aunt Catherine when she tells us that in kindness it isnot enough to be good to others, one should also learn to be gracious. 

Mother thought she was very rude to _her_ once, when she said, quiteout loud, that Father is very ill-tempered, and that, if Mother hadnot the temper of an angel, the house could never hold together. Mother was very angry, but Father did not mind. He says our house willhold together much longer than most houses, because he swore at theworkmen, and went to law with the builder for using dirt instead ofmortar, so the builder had to pull down what was done wrong, and do itright; and Father says he knows he has a bad temper, but he does notmean to pull the house over our heads at present, unless he has to getbricks out to heave at Lady Catherine if she becomes quite unbearable. 

We do not like dear Father to be called bad-tempered. He comes homecross sometimes, and then we have to be very quiet, and keep out ofthe way; and sometimes he goes out rather cross, but not always. Itwas what Chris said about that that pleased Lady Catherine so much. 

It was one day when Father came home cross, and was very much vexed tofind us playing about the house. Arthur had got a new Adventure Book, and he had been reading to us about the West Coast of Africa, andniggers, and tom-toms, and "going Fantee;" and James gave him a lot ofold corks out of the pantry, and let him burn them in a candle. Itrained, and we could not go out; so we all blacked our faces withburnt cork, and played at the West Coast in one of the back passages, and at James being the captain of a slave ship, because he tried tocatch us when we beat the tom-toms too near him when he was cleaningthe plate, to make him give us rouge and whitening to tattoo with. 

Dear Father came home rather earlier than we expected, and rathercross. Chris did not hear the front door, because his ears werepinched up with tying curtain rings on to them, and just at thatminute he shouted, "I go Fantee!" and tore his pinafore right up themiddle, and burst into the front hall with it hanging in two pieces bythe armholes, his eyes shut, and a good grab of James's rouge-powdersmudged on his nose, yelling and playing the tom-tom on what is leftof Arthur's drum. 

Father was very angry indeed, and Chris was sent to bed, and notallowed to go down to dessert; and Lady Catherine was dining at ourhouse, so he missed her. 

Next time she called, and saw Chris, she asked him why he had not beenat dessert that night. Mother looked at Chris, and said, "Why was it, Chris? Tell Aunt Catherine. " Mother thought he would say, "Because Itore my pinafore, and made a noise in the front hall. " But he smiled, the grave way Chris does, and said, "Because Father came home cross. "And Lady Catherine was pleased, but Mother was vexed. 

I am quite sure Chris meant no harm, but he does say very funnythings. Perhaps it is because his head is rather large for his body, with some water having got into his brain when he was very little, sothat we have to take care of him. And though he does say very oddthings, very slowly, I do not think any one of us tries harder to begood. 

I remember once Mother had been trying to make us forgive each other'strespasses, and Arthur would say that you cannot _make_ yourself feelkindly to them that trespass against you; and Mother said if you makeyourself do right, then at last you get to feel right; and it was verysoon after this that Harry and Christopher quarrelled, and would notforgive each other's trespasses in the least, in spite of all that Icould do to try and make peace between them. 

Chris went off in the sulks, but after a long time I came upon him inthe toy-cupboard, looking rather pale and very large-headed, andwinding up his new American top, and talking to himself. 

When he talks to himself he mutters, so I could only just hear what hewas saying, and he said it over and over again:

"_Dos first and feels afterwards_. "

"What are you doing, Chris?" I asked. 

"I'm getting ready my new top to give to Harry. _Dos first and feelsafterwards. _"

"Well, " I said, "Christopher, you _are_ a good boy. "

"I should like to punch his head, " said Chris--and he said it in justthe same sing-song tone--"but I'm getting the top ready. _Dos firstand feels afterwards_. "

And he went on winding and muttering. 

Afterwards he told me that the "feels" came sooner than he expected. Harry wouldn't take his top, and they made up their quarrel. 

Christopher is very simple, but sometimes we think he is also a littlesly. He can make very wily excuses about things he does not like. 

He does not like Nurse to hold back his head and wash his face; and atlast one day she let him go down-stairs with a dirty face, and thencomplained to Mother. So Mother asked Chris why he was so naughtyabout having his face washed, and he said, quite gravely, "I do thinkit would be _such pity_ if the water got into my head again byaccident. " Mother did not know he had ever heard about it, but shesaid, "Oh, Chris! Chris! that's one of your excuses. " And he said, "It's not my _'scusis_. She lets a good deal get in--at my ears--andlather too. "

But, with all his whimsical ways, Lady Catherine is devoted toChristopher. She likes him far better than any one of us, and he isvery fond of her; and they say quite rude things to each other allalong. And Father says it is very lucky, for if she had not been sofond of Chris, and so ready to take him too, Mother would never havebeen persuaded to leave us when Aunt Catherine took them to the Southof France. 

Mother had been very unwell for a long time. She has so many worries, and Dr. Solomon said she ought to avoid worry, and Aunt Catherine saidworries were killing her, and Father said "Pshaw!" and Aunt Catherinesaid "Care killed the cat, " and that a cat has nine lives, and a womanhas only one; and then Mother got worse, and Aunt Catherine wanted totake her abroad, and she wouldn't go; and then Christopher was ill, and Aunt Catherine said she would take him too, if only Mother wouldgo with her; and Dr. Solomon said it might be the turning-point of hishealth, and Father said "the turning-point which way?" but he thankedLady Catherine, and they didn't quarrel; and so Mother yielded, and itwas settled that they should go. 

Before they went, Mother spoke to me, and told me I must be a LittleMother to the others whilst she was away. She hoped we should all tryto please Father, and to be unselfish with each other; but sheexpected me to try far harder than the others, and never to think ofmyself at all, so that I might fill her place whilst she was away. SoI promised to try, and I did. 

We missed Christopher sadly. And Saxon missed him. The first timeSaxon came to see us after Mother and Chris went away, we told him allabout it, and he looked very sorry. Then we said that he should beour brother in Christopher's stead, whilst Chris was away; and helooked very much pleased, and wagged his tail, and licked our facesall round. So we told him to come and see us very often. 

He did not, but we do not think it was his fault. He is chained up somuch. 

One day Arthur and I were walking down the road outside the OldSquire's stables, and Saxon smelt us, and we could hear him run andrattle his chain, and he gave deep, soft barks. 

Arthur laughed. He said, "Do you hear Saxon, Mary? Now I dare say theOld Squire thinks he smells tramps and wants to bite them. He doesn'tknow that Saxon smells his new sister and brother, and wishes he couldgo out walking with them in Mary's Meadow. "

CHAPTER III. 

Nothing comforted us so much whilst Mother and Chris were away asbeing allowed to play in the library. 

We were not usually allowed to be there so often, but when we askedFather he gave us leave to amuse ourselves there at the time whenMother would have had us with her, provided that we did not bother himor hurt the books. We did not hurt the books, and in the end we wereallowed to go there as much as we liked. 

We have plenty of books of our own, and we have new ones very often:on birthdays and at Christmas. Sometimes they are interesting, andsometimes they are disappointing. Most of them have pretty pictures. It was because we had been rather unlucky for some time, and had haddisappointing ones on our birthdays, that Arthur said to me, "Lookhere, Mary, I'm not going to read any books now but grown-up ones, unless it is an Adventure Book. I'm sick of books for young people, there's so much _stuff_ in them. "

We call it _stuff_ when there seems to be going to be a story and itcomes to nothing but talk; and we call it _stuff_ when there is a veryinteresting picture, and you read to see what it is about, and thereading does not tell you, or tells you wrong. 

Both Arthur and Christopher had had disappointments in their books ontheir birthdays. 

Arthur jumped at his book at first, because there were Japanesepictures in it, and Uncle Charley had just been staying with us, andhad brought beautiful Japanese pictures with him, and had told usJapanese fairy tales, and they were as good as Bechstein. So Arthurwas full of Japan. 

The most beautiful picture of all was of a stork, high up in a tallpine tree, and the branches of the pine tree, and the cones, and thepine needles were most beautifully drawn; and there was a nest withyoung storks in it, and behind the stork and the nest and the tallpine the sun was blazing with all his rays. And Uncle Charley told usthe story to it, and it was called "the Nest of the Stork. "

So when Arthur saw a stork standing among pine needles in his new bookhe shouted with delight, though the pine needles were rather badlydone, with thick strokes. But presently he said, "It's not nearly sogood a stork as Uncle Charley's. And where's the stem of the pine? Itlooks as if the stork were on the ground and on the top of the pinetree too, and there's no nest. And there's no sun. And, oh! Mary, whatdo you think is written under it? '_Crane and Water-reeds_. ' Well, Ido call that a sell!"

Christopher's disappointment was quite as bad. Mother gave him a bookwith very nice pictures, particularly of beasts. The chief reason shegot it for him was that there was such a very good picture of a toad, and Chris is so fond of toads. For months he made friends with one inthe garden. It used to crawl away from him, and he used to creep afterit, talking to it, and then it used to half begin, to crawl up thegarden wall, and stand so, on its hind legs, and let Chris rub itswrinkled back. The toad in the picture was exactly like Christopher'stoad, and he ran about the house with the book in his arms begging usto read him the story about Dear Toady. 

We were all busy but Arthur, and he said, "I want to go on with mywater-wheel. " But Mother said, "Don't be selfish, Arthur. " And hesaid, "I forgot. All right, Chris; bring me the book. " So they wentand sat in the conservatory, not to disturb any one. But very soonthey came back, Chris crying, and saying, "It couldn't be the rightone, Arthur;" and Arthur frowning, and saying, "It _is_ the rightstory; but it's _stuff_. I'll tell you what that book's good for, Chris. To paint the pictures. And you've got a new paint-box. " SoMother said, "What's the matter?" And Arthur said, "Chris thinks Ihaven't read him the right story to his Toad Picture. But I have, andwhat do you think it's about? It's about the silliest little girl youcan imagine--a regular mawk of a girl--_and a Frog_. Not a toad, but aF. R. O. G. Frog! A regular hop, skip, jumping frog!"

Arthur hopped round the room, but Chris cried bitterly. So Arthur ranup to him and kissed him, and said, "Don't cry, old chap, I'll tellyou what I'll do. You get Mary to cut out a lot of the leaves of yourbook that have no pictures, and that will make it like a realscrap-book; and then I'll give you a lot of my scraps and pictures topaste over what's left of the stories, and you'll have such apainting-book as you never had in all your life before. "

So we did. And Arthur was very good, for he gave Chris pictures that Iknow he prized, because Chris liked them. But the very first picturehe gave him was the "Crane and Water-reeds. "

I thought it so good of Arthur to be so nice with Chris that I wishedI could have helped him over his water-wheel. He had put Japan out ofhis head since the disappointment, and spent all his play-time inmaking mills and machinery. He did grind some corn into flour once, but it was not at all white. He said that was because the bran wasleft in. But it was not only bran in Arthur's flour. There was a gooddeal of sand too, from his millstones being made of sandstone, whichhe thought would not matter. But it grinds off. 

Down in the valley, below Mary's Meadow, runs the Ladybrook, whichturns the old water-wheel of Mary's Mill. It is a very picturesque oldmill, and Mother has made beautiful sketches of it. She caught thelast cold she got before going abroad with sketching it--the day wehad a most delightful picnic there, and went about in the punt. Andfrom that afternoon Arthur made up his mind that his next mill shouldbe a water-mill. 

The reason I am no good at helping Arthur about his mills is that I amstupid about machinery; and I was so vexed not to help him, that whenI saw a book in the library which I thought would do so, I did notstop to take it out, for it was in four very large volumes, but ranoff at once to tell Arthur. 

He said, "What _is_ the matter, Mary?"

I said, "Oh, Arthur! I've found a book that will tell you all aboutmills; and it is the nicest smelling book in the library. "

"The nicest _smelling_? What's that got to do with mills?"

"Nothing, of course. But it's bound in russia, and I am so fond of thesmell of russia. But that's nothing. It's a Miller's Dictionary, andit is in four huge volumes, 'with plates. ' I should think you couldlook out all about every kind of mill there ever was a miller to. "

"If the plates give sections and diagrams"--Arthur began, but I didnot hear the rest, for he started off for the library at once, and Iran after him. 

But when we got Miller's Dictionary on the floor, how he did tease me!For there was nothing about mills or millers in it. It was aGardener's and Botanist's Dictionary, by Philip Miller; and the plateswere plates of flowers, very truly drawn, like the pine tree in UncleCharley's Jap. Picture. There were some sections too, but they weresections of greenhouses, not of any kinds of mills or machinery. 

The odd thing was that it turned out a kind of help to Arthur afterall. For we got so much interested in it that it roused us up aboutour gardens. We are all very fond of flowers, I most of all. And atlast Arthur said he thought that miniature mills were really ratherhumbugging things, and it would be much easier and more useful tobuild a cold frame to keep choice auriculas and _half-hardies_ in. 

When we took up our gardens so hotly, Harry and Adela took up theirs, and we did a great deal, for the weather was fine. 

We were surprised to find that the Old Squire's Scotch Gardener knewMiller's Gardener's Dictionary quite well. He said, "It's a gran'wurrk!" (Arthur can say it just like him. )

One day he wished he could see it, and smell the russia binding; hesaid he liked to feel a nice smell. Father was away, and we were byourselves, so we invited him into the library. Saxon wanted to come intoo, but the gardener was very cross with him, and sent him out; andhe sat on the mat outside and dribbled with longing to get in, andthudded his stiff tail whenever he saw any one through the doorway. 

The Scotch Gardener enjoyed himself very much, and he explained a lotof things to Arthur, and helped us to put away the Dictionary when wehad done with it. 

When he took up his hat to go, he gave one long look all round thelibrary. Then he turned to Arthur (and Saxon took advantage of this towag his way in and join the party), and said, "It's a rare privilege, the free entry of a book chamber like this. I'm hoping, younggentleman, that you're not insensible of it?"

Then he caught sight of Saxon, and beat him out of the room with hishat. 

But he came back himself to say, that it might just happen that hewould be glad now and again to hear what was said about this or thatplant (of which he would write down the botanical name) in these noblevolumes. 

So we told him that if he would bring Saxon to see us pretty often, wewould look out anything he wanted to know about in Miller's Gardener'sDictionary. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Looking round the library one day, to see if I could see any morebooks about gardening, I found the Book of Paradise. 

It is a very old book, and very queer. It has a brown leatherback--not russia--and stiff little gold flowers and ornaments all theway down, where Miller's Dictionary has gold swans in crowns, andornaments. 

There are a good many old books in the library, but they are notgenerally very interesting--at least not to us. So when I found thatthough this one had a Latin name on the title-page, it was written inEnglish, and that though it seemed to be about Paradise, it was reallyabout a garden, and quite common flowers, I was delighted, for Ialways have cared more for gardening and flowers than for any otheramusement, long before we found Miller's Gardener's Dictionary. Andthe Book of Paradise is much smaller than the Dictionary, and easierto hold. And I like old, queer things, and it is very old and queer. 

The Latin name is _Paradisi in sole, Paradisus terrestris_, which wedo not any of us understand, though we are all learning Latin; so wecall it the Book of Paradise. But the English name is--"Or a Garden ofall sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt tobe noursed up;" and on the top of every page is written "The Garden ofPleasant Flowers, " and it says--"Collected by John Parkinson, Apothecary of London, and the King's Herbarist, 1629. "

I had to think a minute to remember who was the king then, and it wasKing Charles I. ; so then I knew that it was Queen Henrietta to whomthe book was dedicated. This was the dedication:--

"TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 

 "MADAME, --Knowing your Majesty so much delighted with all the fair flowers of a Garden, and furnished with them as far beyond others as you are eminent before them; this my Work of a Garden long before this intended to be published, and but now only finished, seemed as it were destined to be first offered into your Highness's hands as of right, challenging the propriety of Patronage from all others. Accept, I beseech your Majesty, this speaking Garden, that may inform you in all the particulars of your store as well as wants, when you cannot see any of them fresh upon the ground: and it shall further encourage him to accomplish the remainder; who in praying that your Highness may enjoy the heavenly Paradise, after many years' fruition of this earthly, submitteth to be your Majesties, "In all humble devotion, "JOHN PARKINSON. "

We like queer old things like this, they are so funny! I liked theDedication, and I wondered if the Queen's Garden really was an EarthlyParadise, and whether she did enjoy reading John Parkinson's bookabout flowers in the winter time, when her own flowers were no longer"fresh upon the ground. " And then I wondered what flowers she had, andI looked out a great many of our chief favourites, and she had severalkinds of them. 

We are particularly fond of Daffodils, and she had several kinds ofDaffodils, from the "Primrose Peerlesse, "[1] "of a sweet but stuffingscent, " to "the least Daffodil of all, "[2] which the book says "wasbrought to us by a Frenchman called Francis le Vean, the honestestroot-gatherer that ever came over to us. "

[Footnote 1: _Narcissus media lutens vulgaris. _]

[Footnote 2: _Narcissus minimus_, Parkinson. _N. Minor_, Miller. ]

The Queen had Cowslips too, though our gardener despised them when hesaw them in my garden. I dug mine up in Mary's Meadow before Fatherand the Old Squire went to law; but they were only common Cowslips, with one Oxlip, by good luck. In the Earthly Paradise there were"double Cowslips, one within another. " And they were calledHose-in-Hose. I wished I had Hose-in-Hose. 

Arthur was quite as much delighted with the Book of Paradise as I. Hesaid, "Isn't it funny to think of Queen Henrietta Maria gardening! Iwonder if she went trailing up and down the walks looking like thatpicture of her we saw when you and I were in London with Mother aboutour teeth, and went to see the Loan Collection of Old Masters. Iwonder if the Dwarf picked the flowers for her. I do wonder whatApothecary John Parkinson looked like when he offered his SpeakingGarden into her Highness's hands. And what beautiful hands she had! Doyou remember the picture, Mary? It was by Vandyck. "

I remembered it quite well. 

That afternoon the others could not amuse themselves, and wanted me totell them a story. They do not like old stories too often, and it israther difficult to invent new ones. Sometimes we do it by turns. Wesit in a circle and one of us begins, and the next must add something, and so we go on. But that way does not make a good plot. My head wasso full of the Book of Paradise that afternoon that I could not thinkof a story, but I said I would begin one. So I began:

"Once upon a time there was a Queen--"

"How was she dressed?" asked Adela, who thinks a good deal aboutdress. 

"She had a beautiful dark-blue satin robe. "

"_Princesse_ shape?" inquired Adela. 

"No; Queen's shape, " said Arthur. "Drive on, Mary. "

"And lace ruffles falling back from her Highness's hands--"

"Sweet!" murmured Adela. 

"And a high hat, with plumes, on her head, and--"

"A very low dwarf at her heels, " added Arthur. 

"Was there really a dwarf, Mary?" asked Harry. 

"There was, " said I. 

"Had he a hump, or was he only a plain dwarf?"

"He was a very plain dwarf, " said Arthur. 

"Does Arthur know the story, Mary?"

"No, Harry, he doesn't; and he oughtn't to interfere till I come to astop. "

"Beg pardon, Mary. Drive on. "

"The Queen was very much delighted with all fair flowers, and she hada garden so full of them that it was called the Earthly Paradise. "

There was a long-drawn and general "Oh!" of admiration. 

"But though she was a Queen, she couldn't have flowers in the winter, not even in an Earthly Paradise. "

"Don't you suppose she had a greenhouse, by the bye, Mary?" saidArthur. 

"Oh, Arthur, " cried Harry, "I do wish you'd be quiet: when you knowit's a fairy story, and that Queens of that sort never hadgreenhouses or anything like we have now. "

"And so the King's Apothecary and Herbarist, whose name was JohnParkinson--"

"I shouldn't have thought he would have had a common name like that, "said Harry. 

"Bessy's name is Parkinson, " said Adela. 

"Well, I can't help it; his name _was_ John Parkinson. "

"Drive on, Mary!" said Arthur. 

"And he made her a book, called the Book of Paradise, in which therewere pictures and written accounts of her flowers, so that when shecould not see any of them fresh upon the ground, she could read aboutthem, and think about them, and count up how many she had. "

"Ah, but she couldn't tell. Some of them might have died in thewinter, " said Adela. 

"Ah, but some of the others might have got little ones at theirroots, " said Harry. "So that would make up. "

I said nothing. I was glad of the diversion, for I could not think howto go on with the story. Before I quite gave in, Harry luckily asked, "Was there a Weeding Woman in the Earthly Paradise?"

"There was, " said I. 

"How was she dressed?" asked Adela. 

"She had a dress the colour of common earth. "

"_Princesse_ shape?" inquired Arthur. 

"No; Weeding Woman shape. Arthur, I wish you wouldn't--"

"All right, Mary. Drive on. "

"And a little shawl, that had partly the colour of grass, and partlythe colour of hay. "

"_Hay dear_!" interpolated Arthur, exactly imitating a well-known sighpeculiar to Bessy's aunt. 

"Was her bonnet like our Weeding Woman's bonnet?" asked Adela, in adisappointed tone. 

"Much larger, " said I, "and the colour of a Marigold. "

Adela looked happier. "Strings the same?" she asked. 

"No. One string canary-colour, and the other white. "

"And a basket?" asked Harry. 

"Yes, a basket, of course. Well, the Queen had all sorts of flowers inher garden. Some of them were natives of the country, and some of themwere brought to her from countries far away, by men calledRoot-gatherers. There were very beautiful Daffodils in the EarthlyParadise, but the smallest of all the Daffodils--"

"A Dwarf, like the Hunchback?" said Harry. 

"The Dwarf Daffodil of all was brought to her by a man called Francisle Vean. "

"That was a _much_ nicer name than John Parkinson, " said Harry. 

"And he was the honestest Root-gatherer that ever brought foreignflowers into the Earthly Paradise. "

"Then I love him!" said Harry. 

CHAPTER V. 

One sometimes thinks it is very easy to be good, and then there comessomething which makes it very hard. 

I liked being a Little Mother to the others, and almost enjoyed givingway to them. "Others first, Little Mothers afterwards, " as we used tosay--till the day I made up that story for them out of the Book ofParadise. 

The idea of it took our fancy completely, the others as well as mine, and though the story was constantly interrupted, and never came to anyreal plot or end, there were no Queens, or dwarfs, or characters ofany kind in all Bechstein's fairy tales, or even in Grimm, morepopular than the Queen of the Blue Robe and her Dwarf, and the HonestRoot-gatherer, and John Parkinson, King's Apothecary and Herbarist, and the Weeding Woman of the Earthly Paradise. 

When I said, "Wouldn't it be a good new game to have an EarthlyParadise in our gardens, and to have a King's Apothecary andHerbarist to gather things and make medicine of them, and an HonestRoot-gatherer to divide the polyanthus plants and the bulbs when wetake them up, and divide them fairly, and a Weeding Woman to work andmake things tidy, and a Queen in a blue dress, and Saxon for theDwarf"--the others set up such a shout of approbation that Father sentJames to inquire if we imagined that he was going to allow his houseto be turned into a bear-garden. 

And Arthur said, "No. Tell him we're only turning it into a SpeakingGarden, and we're going to turn our own gardens into an EarthlyParadise. "

But I said, "Oh, James! please don't say anything of the kind. Saywe're very sorry, and we will be quite quiet. "

And James said, "Trust me, Miss. It would be a deal more than my placeis worth to carry Master Arthur's messages to his Pa. "

"I'll be the Honestest Root-gatherer, " said Harry. "I'll take upDandelion roots to the very bottom, and sell them to the King'sApothecary to make Dandelion tea of. "

"That's a good idea of yours, Harry, " said Arthur. "I shall be JohnParkinson--"

"_My_ name is Francis le Vean, " said Harry. 

"King's Apothecary and Herbarist, " continued Arthur, disdaining theinterruption. "And I'll bet you my Cloth of Gold Pansy to your BlackPrince that Bessy's aunt takes three bottles of my dandelion andcamomile mixture for 'the swimmings, ' bathes her eyes every morningwith my elder-flower lotion to strengthen the sight, and sleeps everynight on my herb pillow (if Mary 'll make me a flannel bag) before theweek's out. "

"I could make you a flannel bag, " said Adela, "if Mary will make me abonnet, so that I can be the Weeding Woman. You could make it oftissue-paper, with stiff paper inside, like all those caps you madefor us last Christmas, Mary dear, couldn't you? And there is somelovely orange-coloured paper, I know, and pale yellow, and white. Thebonnet was Marigold colour, was it not? And one string canary-colouredand one white. I couldn't tie them, of course, being paper; butBessy's aunt doesn't tie her bonnet. She wears it like a helmet, toshade her eyes. I shall wear mine so too. It will be all Marigold, won't it, dear? Front _and_ crown; and the white string going backover one shoulder and the canary string over the other. They might bepinned together behind, perhaps, if they were in my way. Don't youthink so?"

I said "Yes, " because if one does not say something, Adela never stopssaying whatever it is she is saying, even if she has to say it two orthree times over. 

But I felt so cross and so selfish, that if Mother _could_ have knownshe _would_ have despised me!

For the truth was, I had set my heart upon being the Weeding Woman. Ithought Adela would want to be the Queen, because of the blue dress, and the plumed hat, and the lace ruffles. Besides, she likes pickingflowers, but she never liked grubbing. She would not really like theWeeding Woman's work; it was the bonnet that had caught her fancy, andI found it hard to smother the vexing thought that if I had gone ondressing the Weeding Woman of the Earthly Paradise like Bessy's aunt, instead of trying to make the story more interesting by inventing amarigold bonnet with yellow and white strings for her, I might havehad the part I wished to play in our new game (which certainly was ofmy devising), and Adela would have been better pleased to be the Queenthan to be anything else. 

As it was, I knew that if I asked her she would give up the WeedingWoman. Adela is very good, and she is very good-natured. And I knew, too, that it would not have cost her much. She would have given a sighabout the bonnet, and then have turned her whole attention to a bluerobe, and how to manage the ruffles. 

But even whilst I was thinking about it, Arthur said: "Of course, Marymust be the Queen, unless we could think of something else--verygood--for her. If we could have thought of something, Mary, I wasthinking how jolly it would be, when Mother comes home, to have had_her_ for the Queen, with Chris for her Dwarf, and to give her flowersout of our Earthly Paradise. "

"She would, look just like a Queen, " said Harry. 

"In her navy blue nun's cloth and Russian lace, " said Adela. 

That settled the question. Nothing could be so nice as to have Motherin the game, and the plan provided for Christopher also. I had no wishto be Queen, as far as that went. Dressing up, and walking about thegarden would be no fun for me. I really had looked forward to clearingaway big baskets full of weeds and rubbish, and keeping our fivegardens and the paths between them so tidy as they had never been keptbefore. And I knew the weeds would have a fine time of it with Adela, as Weeding Woman, in a tissue-paper bonnet!

But one thing was more important, than tidy gardens--not to beselfish. 

I had been left as Little Mother to the others, and I had been luckyenough to think of a game that pleased them. If I turned selfish now, it would spoil everything. 

So I said that Arthur's idea was excellent; that I had no wish to beQueen, that I thought I might, perhaps, devise another character formyself by and by; and that if the others would leave me alone, I wouldthink about it whilst I was making Adela's bonnet. 

The others were quite satisfied. Father says people always aresatisfied with things in general, when they've got what they want forthemselves, and I think that is true. 

I got the tissue-paper and the gum; resisted Adela's extreme desire tobe with me and talk about the bonnet, and shut myself up in thelibrary. 

I got out the Book of Paradise too, and propped it up in an arm-chair, and sat on a footstool in front of it, so that I could read in betweenwhiles of making the bonnet. There is an index, so that you can lookout the flowers you want to read about. It was no use our looking outflowers, except common ones, such as Harry would be allowed to getbits of out of the big garden to plant in our little gardens, when hebecame our Honest Root-gatherer. 

I looked at the Cowslips again. I am very fond of them, and so, theysay, are nightingales; which is, perhaps, why that nightingale we knowlives in Mary's Meadow, for it is full of cowslips. 

The Queen had a great many kinds, and there are pictures of most ofthem. She had the Common Field Cowslip, the Primrose Cowslip, theSingle Green Cowslip, Curled Cowslips, or Galligaskins, DoubleCowslips, or Hose-in-Hose, and the Franticke or Foolish Cowslip, orJackanapes on Horsebacke. 

I did not know one of them except the Common Cowslip, but I rememberedthat Bessy's aunt once told me that she had a double cowslip. It wasthe day I was planting common ones in my garden, when our gardenerdespised them. Bessy's aunt despised them too, and she said the doubleones were only fit for a cottage garden. I laughed so much that I torethe canary-coloured string as I was gumming it on to the bonnet, tothink how I could tell her now that cowslips are Queen's flowers, thecommon ones as well as the Hose-in-Hose. 

Then I looked out the Honeysuckle, it was page 404, and there were nopictures. I began at the beginning of the chapter; this was it, and itwas as funnily spelt as the preface, but I could read it. 

"Chap. Cv. _Periclymemum_. Honeysuckles. 

"The Honisucle that groweth wilde in euery hedge, although it be verysweete, yet doe I not bring it into my garden, but let it rest in hisowne place, to serue their senses that trauell by it, or haue nogarden. "

I had got so far when James came in. He said--"Letters, miss. "

It was the second post, and there was a letter for me, and a bookparcel; both from Mother. 

Mother's letters are always delightful; and, like things she says, they often seem to come in answer to something you have been thinkingabout, and which you would never imagine she could know, unless shewas a witch. This was _the knowing bit_ in that letter:--"_Your dearfather's note this morning did me more good than bottles of tonic. Itis due to you, my trust-worthy little daughter, to tell you of the bitthat pleased me most. He says_--'_The children seem to me to bebehaving unusually well, and I must say, I believe the credit belongsto Mary. She seems to have a genius for keeping them amused, whichluckily means keeping them out of mischief_. ' _Now, good LittleMother, I wonder how you yourself are being entertained? I hope theothers are not presuming on your unselfishness? Anyhow, I send you abook for your own amusement when they leave you a bit of peace andquiet. I have long been fond of it in French, and I have found anEnglish translation with nice little pictures, and send it to you. Iknow you will enjoy it, because you are so fond of flowers_. "

Oh, how glad I was that I had let Adela be the Weeding Woman with agood grace, and could open my book parcel with a clear conscience!

I put the old book away and buried myself in the new one. 

I never had a nicer. It was called _A Tour Round my Garden_, and someof the little stories in it--like the Tulip Rebecca, and theDiscomfited Florists--were very amusing indeed; and some were sad andpretty, like the Yellow Roses; and there were delicious bits, like theEnriched Woodman and the Connoisseur Deceived; but there was no"stuff" in it at all. 

Some chapters were duller than others, and at last I got into a verydull one, about the vine, and it had a good deal of Greek in it, andwe have not begun Greek. 

But after the Greek, and the part about Bacchus and Anacreon (I didnot care about _them_; they were not in the least like the DiscomfitedFlorists, or the Enriched Woodman!) there came this, and I liked itthe best of all:--

"At the extremity of my garden the vine extends in long porticoes, through the arcades of which may be seen trees of all sorts, andfoliage of all colours. There is an _azerolier_ (a small medlar) whichis covered in autumn with little apples, producing the richest effect. I have given away several grafts of this; far from deriving pleasurefrom the privation of others, I do my utmost to spread and rendercommon and vulgar all the trees and plants that I prefer; it is as ifI multiplied the pleasure and the chances of beholding them of allwho, like me, really love flowers for their splendour, their grace, and their perfume. Those who, on the contrary, are jealous of theirplants, and only esteem them in proportion with their conviction thatno one else possesses them, do not love flowers; and be assured thatit is either chance or poverty which has made them collectors offlowers, instead of being collectors of pictures, cameos, medals, orany other thing that might serve as an excuse for indulging in all thejoys of possession, seasoned with the idea that others do not possess. 

"I have even carried the vulgarization of beautiful flowers fartherthan this. 

"I ramble about the country near my dwelling, and seek the wildest andleast-frequented spots. In these, after clearing and preparing a fewinches of ground, I scatter the seeds of my most favourite plants, which re-sow themselves, perpetuate themselves, and multiplythemselves. At this moment, whilst the fields display nothing but thecommon red poppy, strollers find with surprise in certain wild nooksof our country, the most beautiful double poppies, with their white, red, pink, carnation, and variegated blossoms. 

"At the foot of an isolated tree, instead of the little bindweed withits white flower, may sometimes be found the beautifully climbingconvolvulus major, of all the lovely colours that can be imagined. 

"Sweet peas fasten their tendrils to the bushes, and cover them withthe deliciously-scented white, rose-colour, or white and violetbutterflies. 

"It affords me immense pleasure to fix upon a wild-rose in a hedge, and graft upon it red and white cultivated roses, sometimes singleroses of a magnificent golden yellow, then large Provence roses, orothers variegated with red and white. 

"The rivulets in our neighbourhood do not produce on their banks theseforget-me-nots, with their blue flowers, with which the rivulet of mygarden is adorned; I mean to save the seed, and scatter it in mywalks. 

"I have observed two young wild quince trees in the nearest wood; nextspring I will engraft upon them two of the best kinds of pears. 

"And then, how I enjoy beforehand and in imagination, the pleasure andsurprise which the solitary stroller will experience when he meets inhis rambles with those beautiful flowers and these delicious fruits!

"This fancy of mine may, one day or another, cause some learnedbotanist who is herbarizing in these parts a hundred years hence, toprint a stupid and startling system. All these beautiful flowers willhave become common in the country, and will give it an aspect peculiarto itself; and, perhaps, chance or the wind will cast a few of theseeds or some of them amidst the grass which shall cover my forgottengrave!"

This was the end of the chapter, and then there was a vignette, a verypretty one, of a cross-marked, grass-bound grave. 

Some books, generally grown-up ones, put things into your head with asort of rush, and now it suddenly rushed into mine--"_That's what I'llbe!_ I can think of a name hereafter--but that's what I'll do. I'lltake seeds and cuttings, and off-shoots from our garden, and set themin waste places, and hedges, and fields, and I'll make an EarthlyParadise of Mary's Meadow. "

CHAPTER VI. 

The only difficulty about my part was to find a name for it. I mighthave taken the name of the man who wrote the book--it is AlphonseKarr, --just as Arthur was going to be called John Parkinson. But I ama girl, so it seemed silly to take a man's name. And I wanted somekind of title, too, like King's Apothecary and Herbarist, or WeedingWoman, and Alphonse Karr does not seem to have had any by-name of thatsort. 

I had put Adela's bonnet on my head to carry it safely, and was stillsitting thinking, when the others burst into the library. 

Arthur was first, waving a sheet of paper; but when Adela saw thebonnet, she caught hold of his arm and pushed forward. 

"Oh, it's sweet! Mary, dear, you're an angel. You couldn't be betterif you were a real milliner and lived in Paris. I'm sure youcouldn't. "

"Mary, " said Arthur, "remove that bonnet, which by no means becomesyou, and let Adela take it into a corner and gibber over it toherself. I want you to hear this. "

"You generally do want the platform, " I said, laughing. "Adela, I amvery glad you like it. To-morrow, if I can find a bit of pinktissue-paper, I think I could gum on little pleats round the edge ofthe strings as a finish. "

I did not mind how gaudily I dressed the part of Weeding Woman now. 

"You are good, Mary. It will make it simply perfect; and, kilts don'tyou think? Not box pleats?"

Arthur groaned. 

"You shall have which you like, dear. Now, Arthur, what is it?"

Arthur shook out his paper, gave it a flap with the back of his hand, as you do with letters when you are acting, and said--"It's to Mother, and when she gets it, she'll be a good deal astonished, I fancy. "

When I had heard the letter, I thought so too. 

"TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTIE--

 "MY DEAR MOTHER, --This is to tell you that we have made you Queen of the Blue Robe, and that your son Christopher is a dwarf, and we think you'll both be very much pleased when you hear it. He can do as he likes about having a hump back. When you come home we shall give faire flowers into your Highnesse hands--that is if you'll do what I'm going to ask you, for nobody can grow flowers out of nothing. I want you to write to John--write straight to him, don't put it in your letter to Father--and tell him that you have given us leave to have some of the seedlings out of the frames, and that he's to dig us up a good big clump of daffodils out of the shrubbery--and we'll divide them fairly, for Harry is the Honestest Root-gatherer that ever came over to us. We have turned the whole of our gardens into a _Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris_, if you can construe that; but we must have something to make a start. He's got no end of bedding things over--that are doing nothing in the Kitchen Garden and might just as well be in our Earthly Paradise. And please tell him to keep us a tiny pinch of seed at the bottom of every paper when he is sowing the annuals. A little goes a long way, particularly of poppies. And you might give him a hint to let us have a flower-pot or two now and then (I'm sure he takes ours if he finds any of our dead window-plants lying about), and that he needn't be so mighty mean about the good earth in the potting-shed, or the labels either, they're dirt cheap. Mind you write straight. If only you let John know that the gardens don't entirely belong to him, you'll see that what's spare from the big garden would more than set us going; and it shall further encourage him to accomplish the remainder, who in praying that your Highnesse may enjoy the heavenly Paradise after the many years fruition of this earthly, "Submitteth to be, Your Maiestie's, "In all humble devotion, "JOHN PARKINSON, "King's Apothecary and Herbarist. 

"P. S. --It was Mary's idea. "

"My _dear_ Arthur!" said I. 

"Well, I know it's not very well mixed, " said Arthur. "Not half sowell as I intended at first. I meant to write it all in the Parkinsonstyle. But then, I thought, if I put the part about John in queerlanguage and old spelling, she mightn't understand what we want. Butevery word of the end comes out of the Dedication; I copied it theother day, and I think she'll find it a puzzlewig when she comes toit. "

After which Arthur folded his paper and put it into an envelope whichhe licked copiously, and closed the letter with a great deal ofdisplay. But then his industry coming to an abrupt end, as it oftendid, he tossed it to me, saying, "You can address it, Mary;" so Ienclosed it in my own letter to thank Mother for the book, and I fancyshe did write to our gardener, for he gave us a good lot of things, and was much more good-natured than usual. 

After Arthur had tossed his letter to me, he clasped his hands overhis head and walked up and down thinking. I thought he was calculatingwhat he should be able to get out of John, for when you are planningabout a garden, you seem to have to do so much calculating. Suddenlyhe stopped in front of me and threw down his arms. "Mary, " he said, "if Mother were at home, she _would_ despise us for selfishness, wouldn't she just?"

"I don't think it's selfish to want spare things for our gardens, ifshe gives us leave, " said I. 

"I'm not thinking of that, " said Arthur; "and you're not selfish, younever are; but she would despise me, and Adela, and Harry, becausewe've taken your game, and got our parts, and you've made thatpreposterous bonnet for Adela to be the Weeding Woman in--much she'llweed!--"

"I _shall_ weed, " said Adela. 

"Oh, yes! You'll weed, --Groundsel!--and leave Mary to get up the docksand dandelions, and clear away the heap. But, never mind. Here we'vetaken Mary's game, and she hasn't even got a part. "

"Yes, " said I, "I have; I have got a capital part. I have only tothink of a name. "

"How shall you be dressed?" asked Adela. 

"I don't know yet, " said I. "I have only just thought of the part. "

"Are you sure it's a good-enough one?" asked Harry, with a grave andremorseful air; "because, if not, you must take Francis le Vean. Girlsare called Frances sometimes. "

I explained, and I read aloud the bit that had struck my fancy. 

Arthur got restless half-way through, and took out the Book ofParadise. His letter was on his mind. But Adela was truly delighted. 

"Oh, Mary, " she said. "It is lovely. And it just suits you. It suitsyou much better than being a Queen. "

"Much better, " said I. 

"You'll be exactly the reverse of me, " said Harry. "When I'm diggingup, you'll be putting in. "

"Mary, " said Arthur, from the corner where he was sitting with theBook of Paradise in his lap, "what have you put a mark in the placeabout honeysuckle for?"

"Oh, only because I was just reading there when James brought theletters. "

"John Parkinson can't have been quite so nice a man as Alphonse Karr, "said Adela; "not so unselfish. He took care of the Queen's Gardens, but he didn't think of making the lanes and hedges nice for poorwayfarers. "

I was in the rocking-chair, and I rocked harder to shake up somethingthat was coming into my head. Then I remembered. 

"Yes, Adela, he did--a little. He wouldn't root up the honeysuckle outof the hedges (and I suppose he wouldn't let his root-gatherers grubit up, either); he didn't put it in the Queen's Gardens, but left itwild outside--"

"To serve their senses that travel by it, or have no garden, "interrupted Arthur, reading from the book, "and, oh, Mary! thatreminds me--_travel--travellers. _ I've got a name for your part justcoming into my head. But it dodges out again like a wire-worm througha three-pronged fork. _Travel--traveller--travellers_--what's thecommon name for the--oh, dear! the what's his name that scramblesabout in the hedges. A flower--you know?"

"Deadly Nightshade?" said Harry. 

"Deadly fiddlestick!--"

"Bryony?" I suggested. 

"Oh, no; it begins with C. "

"Clematis?" said Adela. 

"Clematis. Right you are, Adela. And the common name for Clematis isTraveller's Joy. And that's the name for you, Mary, because you'regoing to serve their senses that travel by hedges and ditches andperhaps have no garden. "

"Traveller's Joy, " said Harry. "Hooray!"

"Hooray!" said Adela, and she waved the Weeding Woman's bonnet. 

It was a charming name, but it was too good for me, and I said so. 

Arthur jumped on the rockers, and rocked me to stop my talking. When Iwas far back, he took the point of my chin in his two hands and liftedup my cheeks to be kissed, saying in his very kindest way, "It's not abit too good for you--it's you all over. "

Then he jumped off as suddenly as he had jumped on, and as I went backwith a bounce he cried, "Oh, Mary! give me back that letter. I mustput another postscript and another puzzlewig. 'P. P. S. --ExcellentMajesty: Mary will still be our Little Mother on all common occasions, as you wished, but in the Earthly Paradise we call her Traveller'sJoy. '"

CHAPTER VII. 

There are two or three reasons why the part of Traveller's Joy suitedme very well. In the first place it required a good deal of trouble, and I like taking trouble. Then John was willing to let me do manythings he would not have allowed the others to do, because he couldtrust me to be careful and to mind what he said. 

On each side of the long walk in the kitchen garden there are flowersbetween you and the vegetables, herbaceous borders, with nice bigclumps of things that have suckers, and off-shoots and seedlings attheir feet. 

"The Long Walk's the place to steal from if I wasn't an _honest_Root-gatherer, " said Harry. 

John had lovely poppies there that summer. When I read about thepoppies Alphonse Karr sowed in the wild nooks of his native country, it made me think of John's French poppies, and paeony poppies, andranunculus poppies, and carnation poppies, some very large, somequite small, some round and neat, some full and ragged like Japanesechrysanthemums, but all of such beautiful shades of red, rose, crimson, pink, pale blush, and white, that if they had but smelt likecarnations instead of smelling like laudanum when you have thetoothache, they would have been quite perfect. 

In one way they are nicer than carnations. They have such lots ofseed, and it is so easy to get. I asked John to let me have some ofthe heads. He could not possibly want them all, for each head hasenough in it to sow two or three yards of a border. He said I mighthave what seeds I liked, if I used scissors, and did not drag thingsout of the ground by pulling. But I was not to let the young gentlemengo seed gathering. "Boys be so destructive, " John said. 

After a time, however, I persuaded him to let Harry transplantseedlings of the things that sow themselves and come up in the autumn, if they came up a certain distance from the parent plants. Harry got alot of things for our Paradise in this way; indeed, he would not havegot much otherwise, except wild flowers; and, as he said, "How can Ibe your Honest Root-gatherer if I mayn't gather anything up by theroots?"

I can't help laughing sometimes to think of the morning when he leftoff being our Honest Root-gatherer. He did look so funny, and so likeChris. 

A day or two before, the Scotch Gardener had brought Saxon to see us, and a new kind of mouldiness that had got into his grape vines to showto John. 

He was very cross with Saxon for walking on my garden. (And I am sureI quite forgave him, for I am so fond of him, and he knew no better, poor dear!) But, though he kicked Saxon, the Scotch Gardener was kindto us. He told us that the reason our gardens do not do so well as thebig garden, and that my _Jules Margottin_ has not such big roses asJohn's _Jules Margottin_ is because we have never renewed the soil. 

Arthur and Harry got very much excited about this. They made theScotch Gardener tell them what good soil ought to be made of, and allthe rest of the day they talked of nothing but _compost_. IndeedArthur would come into my room and talk about compost after I had goneto bed. 

Father's farming man was always much more good-natured to us than Johnever was. He would give us anything we wanted. Warm milk when the cowswere milked, or sweet-pea sticks, or bran to stuff the dolls' pillows. I've known him take his hedging-bill, in his dinner-hour, and cut fuelfor our beacon-fire, when we were playing at a French Invasion. Nothing could be kinder. 

Perhaps we do not tease him so much as we tease John. But when I saythat, Arthur says, "Now, Mary, that's just how you explain awaythings. The real difference between John and Michael is, that Michaelis good-natured and John is not. Catch John showing me the duck's nestby the pond, or letting you into the cow-house to kiss the new calfbetween the eyes--if he were farm man instead of gardener!"

And the night Arthur sat in my room, talking about compost, he said, "I shall get some good stuff out of Michael, I know; and Harry and Isee our way to road-scrapings if we can't get sand; and we mean totake precious good care John doesn't have all the old leaves tohimself. It's the top-spit that puzzles us, and loam is the mostimportant thing of all. "

"What is top-spit?" I asked. 

"It's the earth you get when you dig up squares of grass out of afield like the paddock. The new earth that's just underneath. I expectJohn got a lot when he turfed that new piece by the pond, but I don'tbelieve he'd spare us a flower-pot full to save his life. "

"Don't quarrel with John, Arthur. It's no good. "

"I won't quarrel with him if he behaves himself, " said Arthur, "but wemean to have some top-spit somehow. "

"If you aggravate him he'll only complain of us to Father. "

"I know, " said Arthur hotly, "and beastly mean of him, too, when heknows what Father is about this sort of thing. "

"I know it's mean. But what's the good of fighting when you'll onlyget the worst of it?"

"Why to show that you're in the right, and that you know you are, "said Arthur. "Good-night, Mary. We'll have a compost heap of our ownthis autumn, mark my words. "

Next day, in spite of my remonstrances, Arthur and Harry came to openwar with John, and loudly and long did they rehearse their grievances, when we were out of Father's hearing. 

"Have we ever swept our own walks, except that once, long ago, whenthe German women came round with threepenny brooms?" asked Arthur, throwing out his right arm, as if he were making a speech. "And thinkof all the years John has been getting leaf mould for himself out ofour copper beech leaves, and now refuses us a barrow-load of loam!"

The next morning but one Harry was late for breakfast, and then itseemed that he was not dressing he had gone out, --very early, one ofthe servants said. It frightened me, and I went out to look for him. 

When I came upon him in our gardens, it was he who was frightened. 

"Oh, dear, " he exclaimed, "I thought you were John. "

I have often seen Harry dirty--very dirty, --but from the mud on hisboots to the marks on his face where he had pushed the hair out of hiseyes with earthy fingers, I never saw him quite so grubby before. Andif there had been a clean place left in any part of his clothes wellaway from the ground, that spot must have been soiled by a huge andvery dirty sack, under the weight of which his poor little shoulderswere bent nearly to his knees. 

"What are you doing, Honest Root-gatherer?" I asked; "are you turningyourself into a hump-backed dwarf?"

"I'm not honest, and I'm not a Root-gatherer just now, " said Harry, when he had got breath after setting down his load. He spoke shyly anda little surlily, like Chris when he is in mischief. 

"Harry, what's that?"

"It's a sack I borrowed from Michael. It won't hurt it, it's hadmangel-wurzels in already. "

"What have you got in it now? It looks dreadfully heavy. "

"It _is_ heavy, I can tell you, " said Harry, with one more rub of hisdirty fingers over his face. 

"You look half dead. What is it?"

"It's top-spit;" and Harry began to discharge his load on to the walk. 

"Oh, Harry; where did you get it?"

"Out of the paddock. I've been digging up turfs and getting this out, and putting the turfs back, and stamping them down not to show, eversince six o'clock. It _was_ hard work; and I was so afraid of Johncoming. Mary, you won't tell tales?"

"No, Harry. But I don't think you ought to have taken it withoutMother's leave. "

"I don't think you can call it stealing, " said Harry. "Fields are akind of wild places anyhow, and the paddock belongs to Father, and itcertainly doesn't belong to John. "

"No, " said I, doubtfully. 

"I won't get any more; it's dreadfully hard work, " said Harry, but ashe shook the sack out and folded it up, he added (in rather asatisfied tone), "I've got a good deal. "

I helped him to wash himself for breakfast, and half-way through hesuddenly smiled and said, "John Parkinson will be glad when he sees_you-know-what_, Mary, whatever the other John thinks of it. "

But Harry did not cut any more turfs without leave, for he told methat he had a horrid dream that night of waking up in prison with awarder looking at him through a hole in the door of his cell, andfinding out that he was in penal servitude for stealing top-spit fromthe bottom of the paddock, and Father would not take him out ofprison, and that Mother did not know about it. 

However, he and Arthur made a lot of compost. They said we couldn'tpossibly have a Paradise without it. 

It made them very impatient. We always want the spring and summer andautumn and winter to get along faster than they do. But this yearArthur and Harry were very impatient with summer. 

They were nearly caught one day by Father coming home just as they hadgot through the gates with Michael's old sack full of road-scrapings, instead of sand (we have not any sand growing near us, and silver sandis rather dear), but we did get leaves together and stacked them torot into leaf mould. 

Leaf mould is splendid stuff, but it takes a long time for the leavesto get mouldy, and it takes a great many too. Arthur is ratherimpatient, and he used to say--"I never saw leaves stick on tobranches in such a way. I mean to get into some of these old trees andgive them a good shaking to remind them what time of year it is. If Idon't we shan't have anything like enough leaves for our compost. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

Mother was very much surprised by Arthur's letter, but not so muchpuzzled as he expected. She knew Parkinson's _Paradisus_ quite well, and only wrote to me to ask, "What are the boys after with the oldbooks? Does your Father know?"

But when I told her that he had given us leave to be in the library, and that we took great care of the books, and how much we enjoyed theones about gardening, and all that we were going to do, she was verykind indeed, and promised to put on a blue dress and lace ruffles andbe Queen of our Earthly Paradise as soon as she came home. 

When she did come home she was much better, and so was Chris. He wasdelighted to be our Dwarf, but he wanted to have a hump, and he wouldhave such a big one that it would not keep in its place, and keptslipping under his arm and into all sorts of queer positions. 

Not one of us enjoyed our new game more than Chris did, and he wasalways teasing me to tell him the story I had told the others, and toread out the names of the flowers which "the real Queen" had in her"real paradise. " He made Mother promise to try to get him a bulb ofthe real Dwarf Daffodil as his next birthday present, to put in hisown garden. 

"And I'll give you some compost, " said Arthur. "It'll be ever so muchbetter than a stupid book with 'stuff' in it. "

Chris did seem much stronger. He had colour in his cheeks, and hishead did not look so large. But he seemed to puzzle over things in itas much as ever, and he was just as odd and quaint. 

One warm day I had taken the _Tour round my Garden_ and was sittingnear the bush in the little wood behind our house, when Chris cameafter me with a Japanese fan in his hand, and sat down cross-legged atmy feet. As I was reading, and Mother has taught us not to interruptpeople when they are reading, he said nothing, but there he sat. 

"What is it, Chris?" said I. 

"I am discontented, " said Chris. 

"I'm very sorry, " said I. 

"I don't think I'm selfish, particularly, but I'm discontented. "

"What about?"

"Oh, Mary, I do wish I had not been away when you invented Paradise, then I should have had a name in the game. "

"You've got a name, Chris. You're the Dwarf. "

"Ah, but what was the Dwarf's name?"

"I don't know, " I admitted. 

"No; that's just it. I've only one name, and Arthur and Harry havetwo. Arthur is a Pothecary" (Chris could never be induced to acceptApothecary as one word), "and he's John Parkinson as well. Harry isHonest Root-gatherer, and he is Francis le Vean. If I'd not been awayI should have had two names. "

"You can easily have two names, " said I. "We'll call the Dwarf ThomasBrown. "

Chris shook his big head. 

"No, no. That wasn't his name; I know it wasn't. It's only stuff. Iwant another name out of the old book. "

I dared not tell him that the Dwarf was not in the old book. I said:

"My dear Chris, you really are discontented; we can't all have doublenames. Adela has only one name, she is Weeding Woman and nothing else;and I have only one name, I'm Traveller's Joy, and that's all. "

"But you and Adela are girls, " said Chris, complacently: "The boyshave two names. "

I suppressed some resentment, for Christopher's eyes were beginning tolook weary, and said:

"Shall I read to you for a bit?"

"No, don't read. Tell me things out of the old book. Tell me about theQueen's flowers. Don't tell me about daffodils, they make me thinkwhat a long way off my birthday is, and I'm quite discontentedenough. "

And Chris sighed, and lay down on the grass, with one arm under hishead, and his fan in his hand; and, as well as I could remember, Itold him all about the different varieties of Cowslips, down to theFranticke, or Foolish Cowslip, and he became quite happy. 

Dear Father is rather short-sighted, but he can hold a round glass inhis eye without cutting himself. It was the other eye which was nextto Chris at prayers the following morning; but he saw his legs, andthe servants had hardly got out of the hall before he shouted, "Pullup your stockings, Chris!"--and then to Mother, "Why do you keep thatsloven of a girl Bessy, if she can't dress the children decently? ButI can't conceive what made you put that child into knickerbockers, hecan't keep his stockings up. "

"Yes, I can, " said Christopher, calmly, looking at his legs. 

"Then what have you got 'em down for?" shouted Father. 

"They're not all down, " said Chris, his head still bent over hisknees, till I began to fear he would have a fit. 

"One of 'em is, anyhow. I saw it at prayers. Pull it up. "

"Two of them are, " said Christopher, never lifting his admiring gazefrom his stockings. "Two of them are down, and two of them are up, quite up, quite tidy. "

Dear Father rubbed his glass and put it back into his eye. 

"Why, how many stockings have you got on?"

"Four, " said Chris, smiling serenely at his legs; "and it isn'tBessy's fault. I put 'em all on myself, every one of them. "

At this minute James brought in the papers, and Father only laughed, and said, "I never saw such a chap, " and began to read. He is veryfond of Christopher, and Chris is never afraid of him. 

I was going out of the room, and Chris followed me into the hall, anddrew my attention to his legs, which were clothed in four stockings;one pair, as he said, being drawn tidily up over his knees, the otherpair turned down with some neatness in folds a little above hisankles. 

"Mary, " he said, "I'm contented now. "

"I'm very glad, Chris. But do leave off staring at your legs. All theblood will run into your head. "

"I wish things wouldn't always get into _my_ head, and nobody else's, "said Chris, peevishly, as he raised it; but when he looked back at hisstockings, they seemed to comfort him again. 

"Mary, I've found another name for myself. "

"Dear Chris! I'm so glad. "

"It's a real one, out of the old book. I thought of it entirely bymyself. "

"Good Dwarf. What is your name?"

"_Hose-in-Hose_, " said Christopher, still smiling down upon his legs. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Alas for the hose-in-hose!

I laughed over Christopher and his double stockings, and I danced forjoy when Bessy's aunt told me that she had got me a fine lot of rootsof double cowslips. I never guessed what misery I was about to suffer, because of the hose-in-hose. 

I had almost forgotten that Bessy's aunt knew double cowslips. After Ibecame Traveller's Joy I was so busy with wayside planting that I hadthought less of my own garden than usual, and had allowed Arthur to dowhat he liked with it as part of the Earthly Paradise (and he wasalways changing his plans), but Bessy's aunt had not forgotten aboutit, which was very good of her. 

The Squire's Weeding Woman is old enough to be Bessy's aunt, but shehas an aunt of her own, who lives seven miles on the other side of theMoor, and the Weeding Woman does not get to see her very often. It isa very out-of-the-way village, and she has to wait for chances of acart and team coming and going from one of the farms, and so get alift. 

It was the Weeding Woman's aunt who sent me the hose-in-hose. 

The Weeding Woman told me--"Aunt be mortal fond of her flowers, butshe've no notions of gardening, not in the ways of a gentleman'sgarden. But she be after 'em all along, so well as the roomatiz in herback do let her, with an old shovel and a bit of stuff to keep thefrost out, one time, and the old shovel and a bit of stuff to keep 'emmoistened from the drought, another time; cuddling of 'em likeChristians. 'Ee zee, Miss, Aunt be advanced in years; her family beoff her mind, zum married, zum buried; and it zim as if her flowers belike new childern for her, spoilt childern, too, as I zay, and mostfuss about they that be least worth it, zickly uns and contrairy uns, as parents will. Many's time I do say to she--'Th' Old Zquire'sgarden, now, 'twould zim strange to thee, sartinly 'twould! How would'ee feel to see Gardener zowing's spring plants by the hunderd, anda-throwing of 'em away by the score when beds be vull, and turning ofun out for bedding plants, and throwing they away when he'eve madehis cuttings?' And she 'low she couldn't abear it, no more'n see Heroda mass-sakering of the Innocents. But if 'ee come to Bible, I do sayAunt put me in mind of the par'ble of the talents, she do, for whatyou give her she make ten of, while other folks be losing what theygot. And 'tis well too, for if 'twas not for givin' of un away, seeing's she lose nothing and can't abear to destry nothin', and nevertakes un up but to set un again, six in place of one, as I say, withsuch a mossel of a garden, 'Aunt, where would you be?' And she 'lowshe can't tell, but the Lard would provide. 'Thank He, ' I says, 'yoube so out o' way, and 'ee back so bad, and past travelling, zo therebe no chance of 'ee ever seem' Old Zquire's Gardener's houses and theystove plants;' for if Gardener give un a pot, sure's death her'd setit in the chimbly nook on frosty nights, and put bed-quilt over un, and any cold corner would do for she. "

At this point the Weeding Woman became short of breath, and I managedto protest against taking so many plants of the hose-in-hose. 

"Take un and welcome, my dear, take un and welcome, " replied Bessy'saunt. "I did say to Aunt to keep two or dree, but 'One be aal I want, 'her says, 'I'll have so many agin in a few years, dividin' of un inautumn, ' her says. 'Thee've one foot in grave, Aunt, ' says I, 'itdon't altogether become 'ee to forecast autumns, ' I says, 'when nextmay be your latter end, 's like as not. ' 'Niece, ' her says, 'I be noways presuming. His will be done, ' her says, 'but if I'm spared I'llrear un, and if I'm took, 'twill be where I sha'n't want un. Zo letyoung lady have un, ' her says. And there a be!"

When I first saw the nice little plants, I did think of my own garden, but not for long. My next and final thought was--"Mary's Meadow!"

Since I became Traveller's Joy, I had chiefly been busy in thehedge-rows by the high-roads, and in waste places, like the oldquarry, and very bare and trampled bits, where there seemed to be noflowers at all. 

You cannot say that of Mary's Meadow. Not to be a garden, it is one ofthe most flowery places I know. I did once begin a list of all thatgrows in it, but it was in one of Arthur's old exercise-books, whichhe had "thrown in, " in a bargain we had, and there were very few blankpages left. I had thought a couple of pages would be more than enough, so I began with rather full accounts of the flowers, but I used up thebook long before I had written out one half of what blossoms in Mary'sMeadow. 

Wild roses, and white bramble, and hawthorn, and dogwood, with itscurious red flowers; and nuts, and maple, and privet, and all sorts ofbushes in the hedge, far more than one would think; and ferns, and thestinking iris, which has such splendid berries, in the ditch--theditch on the lower side where it is damp, and where I meant to sowforget-me-nots, like Alphonse Karr, for there are none there as ithappens. On the other side, at the top of the field, it is dry, andblue succory grows, and grows out on the road beyond. The mostbeautiful blue possible, but so hard to pick. And there are Lentlilies, and lords and ladies, and ground ivy, which smells herby whenyou find it, trailing about and turning the colour of Mother's"aurora" wool in green winters; and sweet white violets, and blue dogviolets, and primroses, of course, and two or three kinds of orchis, and all over the field cowslips, cowslips, cowslips--to please thenightingale. 

And I wondered if the nightingale would find out the hose-in-hose, when I had planted six of them in the sunniest, cosiest corner ofMary's Meadow. 

For this was what I resolved to do, though I kept my resolve tomyself, for which I was afterwards very glad. I did not tell theothers because I thought that Arthur might want some of the plants forour Earthly Paradise, and I wanted to put them all in Mary's Meadow. Isaid to myself, like Bessy's great-aunt, that "if I was spared" Iwould go next year and divide the roots of the six, and bring someoff-sets to our gardens, but I would keep none back now. Thenightingale should have them all. 

We had been busy in our gardens, and in the roads and bye-lanes, andI had not been in Mary's Meadow for a long time before the afternoonwhen I put my little trowel, and a bottle of water, and the sixhose-in-hose into a basket, and was glad to get off quietly and aloneto plant them. The highways and hedges were very dusty, but there itwas very green. The nightingale had long been silent, I do not knowwhere he was, but the rooks were not at all silent; they had beenholding a parliament at the upper end of the field this morning, andwere now all talking at once, and flapping about the tops of the bigelms which were turning bright yellow, whilst down below a flight ofstarlings had taken their place, and sat in the prettiest circles; andgroups of hedge-sparrows flew and mimicked them. And in the fieldsround about the sheep baaed, and the air, which was very sweet, was soquiet that these country noises were the only sounds to be heard, andthey could be heard from very far away. 

I had found the exact spot I wanted, and had planted four of thehose-in-hose, and watered them from the bottle, and had the fifth inmy hand, and the sixth still in the basket, when all these nice noiseswere drowned by a loud harsh shout which made me start, and sent theflight of starlings into the next field, and made the hedge-sparrowsjump into the hedge. 

And when I looked up I saw the Old Squire coming towards me, andstorming and shaking his fist at me as he came. But with the otherhand he held Saxon by the collar, who was struggling to get away fromhim and to go to me. 

I had so entirely forgotten about Father's quarrel with the Squire, that when the sight of the old gentleman in a rage suddenly remindedme, I was greatly stupefied and confused, and really did not at firsthear what he said. But when I understood that he was accusing me ofdigging cowslips out of his field, I said at once (and pretty loud, for he was deaf) that I was not digging up anything, but was plantingdouble cowslips to grow up and spread amongst the common ones. 

I suppose it did sound rather unlikely, as the Old Squire knew nothingabout our game, but a thing being unlikely is no reason for callingtruthful people liars, and that was what the Old Squire called me. 

It choked me, and when he said I was shameless, and that he had caughtme with the plants upon me, and yelled to me to empty my basket, Ithrew away the fifth and sixth hose-in-hose as if they had beenadders, but I could not speak again. He must have been beside himselfwith rage, for he called me all sorts of names, and said I was myfather's own child, a liar and a thief. Whilst he was talking aboutsending me to prison (and I thought of Harry's dream, and turned coldwith fear), Saxon was tugging to get to me, and at last he got awayand came rushing up. 

_Now_ I knew that the Old Squire was holding Saxon back because hethought Saxon wanted to worry me as a trespasser, but I don't knowwhether he let Saxon go at last, because he thought I deserved to beworried, or whether Saxon got away of himself. When his paws werealmost on me the Old Squire left off abusing me, and yelled to thedog, who at last, very unwillingly, went back to him, but when he justgot to the Squire's feet he stopped, and pawed the ground in the funnyway he sometimes does, and looked up at his master as much as to say, "You see it's only play, " and then turned round and raced back to meas hard as he could lay legs to ground. This time he reached me, andjumped to lick my face, and I threw my arms round his neck and burstinto tears. 

When you are crying and kissing at the same time, you cannot hearanything else, so what more the Old Squire said I do not know. 

I picked up my basket and trowel at once, and fled homewards as fastas I could go, which was not very fast, so breathless was I with tearsand shame and fright. 

When I was safe in our grounds I paused and looked back. The OldSquire was still there, shouting and gesticulating, and Saxon was athis heels, and over the hedge two cows were looking at him; but therooks and the starlings were far off in distant trees and fields. 

And I sobbed afresh when I remembered that I had been called a liarand a thief, and had lost every one of my hose-in-hose; and this wasall that had come of trying to make an Earthly Paradise of Mary'sMeadow, and of taking upon myself the name of Traveller's Joy. 

CHAPTER X. 

I told no one. It was bad enough to think of by myself. I could nothave talked about it. But every day I expected that the Old Squirewould send a letter or a policeman, or come himself, and rage andstorm, and tell Father. 

He never did; and no one seemed to suspect that anything had gonewrong, except that Mother fidgeted because I looked ill, and wouldshow me to Dr. Solomon. It is a good thing doctors tell you what theythink is the matter, and don't ask you what you think, for I could nothave told him about the Squire. He said I was below par, and that itwas our abominable English climate, and he sent me a bottle of tonic. And when I had taken half the bottle, and had begun to leave offwatching for the policeman, I looked quite well again. So I took therest, not to waste it, and thought myself very lucky. My only fear nowwas that Bessy's aunt might ask after the hose in-hose. But she neverdid. 

I had one more fright, where I least expected it. It had neveroccurred to me that Lady Catherine would take an interest in our game, and want to know what we had done, and what we were doing, and what wewere going to do, or I should have been far more afraid of her than ofBessy's aunt. For the Weeding Woman has a good deal of delicacy, andoften begs pardon for taking liberties; but if Aunt Catherine takes aninterest, and wants to know, she asks one question after another, anddoes not think whether you like to answer or not. 

She took an interest in our game after one of Christopher's luncheonswith her. 

She often asks Chris to go there to luncheon, all by himself. Fatheris not very fond of his going, chiefly, I fancy, because he is so fondof Chris, and misses him. Sometimes, in the middle of luncheon, helooks at Christopher's empty place, and says, "I wonder what those twoare talking about over their pudding. They are the queerest pair offriends. " If we ask Chris what they have talked about, he wags hishead, and looks very well pleased with himself, and says, "Lots ofthings. I tell her things, and she tells me things. " And that is allwe can get out of him. 

A few weeks afterwards, after I lost the hose-in-hose, Chris went tohave luncheon with Aunt Catherine, and he came back rather later thanusual. 

"You must have been telling each other a good deal to-day, Chris, " Isaid. 

"I told her lots, " said Chris, complacently. "She didn't tell menothing, hardly. But I told her lots. My apple fritter got cold whilstI was telling it. She sent it away, and had two hot ones, new, onpurpose for me. "

"What _did_ you tell her?"

"I told her your story; she liked it very much. And I told herDaffodils, and about my birthday; and I told her Cowslips--all ofthem. Oh, I told her lots. She didn't tell me nothing. "

A few days later, Aunt Catherine asked us to tea--all of us--me, Arthur, Adela, Harry, and Chris. And she asked us all about our game. When Harry said, "I dig up, but Mary plants--not in our garden, but inwild places, and woods, and hedges, and fields, " Lady Catherine blewher nose very loud, and said, "I should think you don't do muchdigging and planting in that field your Father went to law about?" andmy teeth chattered so with fright that I think Lady Catherine wouldhave heard them if she hadn't been blowing her nose. But, luckily forme, Arthur said, "Oh, we never go near Mary's Meadow now, we're sobusy. " And then Aunt Catherine asked what made us think of my name, and I repeated most of the bit from Alphonse Karr, for I knew it byheart now; and Arthur repeated what John Parkinson says about the"Honisucle that groweth wilde in every hedge, " and how he left itthere, "to serue their senses that trauell by it, or haue no garden;"and then he said, "So Mary is called Traveller's Joy, because sheplants flowers in the hedges, to serve their senses that travel bythem. "

"And who serves them that have no garden?" asked Aunt Catherine, sticking her gold glasses over her nose, and looking at us. 

"None of us do, " said Arthur, after thinking for a minute. 

"Humph!" said Aunt Catherine. 

Next time Chris was asked to luncheon, I was asked too. Father laughedat me, and teased me, but I went. 

I was very much amused by the airs which Chris gave himself at table. He was perfectly well-behaved, but, in his quiet old-fashioned way, hecertainly gave himself airs. We have only one man indoors--James; butAunt Catherine has three--a butler, a footman, and a second footman. The second footman kept near Christopher, who sat opposite AuntCatherine (she made me sit on one side), and seemed to watch to attendupon him; but if Christopher did want any thing, he always ignoredthis man, and asked the butler for it, and called him by his name. 

After a bit, Aunt Catherine began to talk about the game again. 

"Have you got any one to serve them that have no garden, yet?" sheasked. 

Christopher shook his head, and said "No. "

"Humph, " said Aunt Catherine; "better take me into the game. "

"Could you be of any use?" asked Christopher. "Toast and water, Chambers. "

The butler nodded, as majestically as Chris himself, to the secondfootman, who flew to replenish the silver mug, which had been LadyCatherine's when she was a little girl. When Christopher had drainedit (he is a very thirsty boy), he repeated the question:

"Do you think you could be of any use?"

Mr. Chambers, the butler, never seems to hear anything that peoplesay, except when they ask for something to eat or drink; and he doesnot often hear that, because he watches to see what you want, andgives it of himself, or sends it by the footman. He looks just as ifhe was having his photograph taken, staring at a point on the wall andthinking of nothing; but when Christopher repeated his question I sawChambers frown. I believe he thinks Christopher presumes on LadyCatherine's kindness, and does not approve of it. 

It is quite the other way with Aunt Catherine. Just when you wouldthink she must turn angry, and scold Chris for being rude, she onlybegins to laugh, and shakes like a jelly (she is very stout), andencourages him. She said--

"Take care all that toast and water doesn't get into your head, Chris. "

She said that to vex him, because, ever since he heard that he hadwater on the brain, Chris is very easily affronted about his head. Hewas affronted now, and began to eat his bread-and-butter pudding insilence, Lady Catherine still shaking and laughing. Then she wiped hereyes, and said--

"Never mind, old man, I'm going to tell you something. Put the sugarand cream on the table, Chambers, and you needn't wait. "

The men went out very quietly, and Aunt Catherine went on--

"Where do you think I was yesterday? In the new barracks--a place Iset my face against ever since they began to build it, and spoil oneof my best peeps from the Rhododendron Walk. I went to see a youngcousin of mine, who was fool enough to marry a poor officer, and havea lot of little boys and girls, no handsomer than you, Chris. "

"Are they as handsome?" said Chris, who had recovered himself, and wasselecting currants from his pudding, and laying them aside for a final_bonne bouche_. 

"Humph! Perhaps not. But they eat so much pudding, and wear out somany boots, that they are all too poor to live anywhere except inbarracks. "

Christopher laid down his spoon, and looked as he always looks when heis hearing a sad story. 

"Is barracks like the workhouse, Aunt Catherine?" he asked. 

"A good deal like the workhouse, " said Aunt Catherine. Then she wenton--"I told her Mother I could not begin calling at the barracks. There are some very low streets close by, and my coachman said hecouldn't answer for his horses with bugles, and perhaps guns, goingoff when you least expect them. I told her I would ask them to dinner;and I did, but they were engaged. Well, yesterday I changed my mind, and I told Harness that I meant to go to the barracks, and the horseswould have to take me. So we started. When we were going along theupper road, between the high hedges, what do you think I saw?"

Chris had been going on with his pudding again, but he paused to makea guess. 

"A large cannon, just going off?"

"No. If I'd seen that, you wouldn't have seen any more of me. I sawmasses of wild clematis scrambling everywhere, so that the hedgelooked as if somebody had been dressing it up in tufts of feathers. "

As she said this, Lady Catherine held out her hand to me across thetable very kindly. She has a fat hand, covered with rings, and I putmy hand into it. 

"And what do you think came into my head?" she asked. 

"Toast and water, " said Chris, maliciously. 

"No, you monkey. I began to think of hedgeflowers, and travellers, andTraveller's Joy. "

Aunt Catherine shook my hand here, and dropped it. 

"And you thought how nice it was for the poor travellers to have suchnice flowers, " said Chris, smiling, and wagging his head up and down. 

"Nothing of the kind, " said Aunt Catherine, brusquely. "I thought whatlots of flowers the travellers had already, without Mary planting anymore; and I thought not one traveller in a dozen paid much attentionto them--begging John Parkinson's pardon--and how much more in want offlowers people 'that have no garden' are; and then I thought of thatpoor girl in those bare barracks, whose old home was one of theprettiest places, with the loveliest garden, in all Berkshire. "

"Was it an Earthly Paradise?" asked Chris. 

"It was, indeed. Well, when I thought of her inside those brick walls, looking out on one of those yards they march about in, now they've cutdown all the trees, and planted sentry-boxes, I put my best bonnet outof the window, which always spoils the feather, and told Harness toturn his horses' heads, and drive home again. "

"What for?" said Chris, as brusquely as Lady Catherine. 

"I sent for Hobbs. "

"Hobbs the Gardener?" said Chris. 

"Hobbs the Gardener; and I told Chambers to give him the basket fromthe second peg, and then I sent him into the conservatory to fill it. Mary, my dear, I am very particular about my baskets. If ever I lendyou my diamonds, and you lose them, I may forgive you--I shall know_that_ was an accident; but if I lend you a basket, and you don'treturn it, don't look me in the face again. I always write my name onthem, so there's no excuse. And I don't know a greater piece ofimpudence--and people are wonderfully impudent now-a-days--than tothink that because a thing only cost fourpence, you need not be atthe trouble of keeping it clean and dry, and of sending it back. "

"Some more toast and water, please, " said Chris. 

Aunt Catherine helped him, and continued--"Hobbs is a careful man--hehas been with me ten years--he doesn't cut flowers recklessly as arule, but when I saw that basket I said, 'Hobbs, you've been veryextravagant. ' He looked ashamed of himself, but he said, 'I understoodthey was for Miss Kitty, m'm. She's been used to nice gardens, m'm. 'Hobbs lived with them in Berkshire before he came to me. "

"It was very nice of Hobbs, " said Chris, emphatically. 

"Humph!" said Aunt Catherine, "the flowers were mine. "

"Did you ever get to the barracks?" asked Chris, "and what was theylike when you did?"

"They were about as unlike Kitty's old home as anything could well be. She has made her rooms pretty enough, but it was easy to see she ishard up for flowers. She's got an old rose-coloured Sèvres bowl thatwas my Grandmother's, and there it was, filled with bramble leaves andTraveller's Joy (which _she_ calls Old Man's Beard; Kitty always woulddiffer from her elders!), and a soup-plate full of forget-me-nots. Shesaid two of the children had half-drowned themselves and lost a goodstraw hat in getting them for her. Just like their mother, as I toldher. "

"What did she say when you brought out the basket?" asked Chris, disposing of his reserve of currants at one mouthful, and laying downhis spoon. 

"She said, 'Oh! oh! oh!' till I told her to say something moreamusing, and then she said, 'I could cry for joy!' and, 'Tell Hobbs heremembers all my favourites. '"

Christopher here bent his head over his empty plate, and said grace(Chris is very particular about his grace), and then got down from hischair and went up to Lady Catherine, and threw his arms round her asfar as they would go, saying, "You are good. And I love you. I shouldthink she thinked you was a fairy godmother. "

After they had hugged each other, Aunt Catherine said, "Will you takeme into the game, if I serve them that have no garden?"

Chris and I said "Yes" with one voice. 

"Then come into the drawing-room, " said Aunt Catherine, getting up andgiving a hand to each of us. "And Chris shall give me a name. "

Chris pondered a long time on this subject, and seemed a good dealdisturbed in his mind. Presently he said, "I _won't_ be selfish. Youshall have it. "

"Shall have what, you oddity?"

"I'm not a oddity, and I'm going to give you the name I invented formyself. But you'll have to wear four stockings, two up and two down. "

"Then you may keep _that_ name to yourself, " said Aunt Catherine. 

Christopher looked relieved. 

"Perhaps you'd not like to be called Old Man's Beard?"

"Certainly not!" said Aunt Catherine. 

"It _is_ more of a boy's name, " said Chris. "You might be theFranticke or Foolish Cowslip, but it is Jack an Apes on Horseback too, and that's a boy's name. You shall be Daffodil, not a dwarf daffodil, but a big one, because you are big. Wait a minute--I know which youshall be. You shall be Nonsuch. It's a very big one, and it means nonelike it. So you shall be Nonsuch, for there's no one like you. "

On which Christopher and Lady Catherine hugged each other afresh. 

 * * * * *

"Who told most to-day?" asked Father when we got home. 

"Oh, Aunt Catherine. Much most, " said Christopher. 

CHAPTER XI. 

The height of our game was in autumn. It is such a good time fordigging up, and planting, and dividing, and making cuttings, andgathering seeds, and sowing them too. But it went by very quickly, andwhen the leaves began to fall they fell very quickly, and Arthur neverhad to go up the trees and shake them. 

After the first hard frost we quite gave up playing at the EarthlyParadise; first, because there was nothing we could do, and, secondly, because a lot of snow fell; and Arthur had a grand idea of making-snowstatues all along the terrace, so that Mother could see them from thedrawing-room windows. We worked very hard, and it was very difficultto manage legs without breaking; so we made most of them Romans intogas, and they looked very well from a distance, and lasted a longtime, because the frost lasted. 

And, by degrees, I almost forgot that terrible afternoon in Mary'sMeadow. Only when Saxon came to see us I told him that I was veryglad that no one understood his bark, so that he could not let outwhat had become of the hose-in-hose. 

But when the winter was past, and the snow-drops came out in theshrubbery, and there were catkins on the nut trees, and themissel-thrush we had been feeding in the frost sat out on mild daysand sang to us, we all of us began to think of our gardens again, andto go poking about "with our noses in the borders, " as Arthur said, "as if we were dogs snuffing after truffles. " What we really were"snuffing after" were the plants we had planted in autumn, and whichwere poking and sprouting, and coming up in all directions. 

Arthur and Harry did real gardening in the Easter holidays, and theycaptured Adela now and then, and made her weed. But Christopher'sdelight was to go with me to the waste places and hedges, where I hadplanted things as Traveller's Joy, and to get me to show them to himwhere they had begun to make a Spring start, and to help him to makeup rambling stories, which he called "Supposings, " of what the flowerswould be like, and what this or that traveller would say when he sawthem. One of his favourite _supposings_ was--"Supposing a very poorman was coming along the road, with his dinner in a handkerchief; andsupposing he sat down under the hedge to eat it; and supposing it wascold beef; and he had no mustard; and supposing there was a seed onyour nasturtium plants, and he knew it wouldn't poison him; andsupposing he ate it with his beef, and it tasted nice and hot, like apickle, wouldn't he wonder how it got there?"

But when the primroses had been out a long time, and the cowslips werecoming into bloom, to my horror Christopher began "supposing" that weshould find hose-in-hose in some of the fields, and all my efforts toput this idea out of his head, and to divert him from the search, wereutterly in vain. 

Whether it had anything to do with his having had water on the brain Ido not know, but when once an idea got into Christopher's head therewas no dislodging it. He now talked of hose-in-hose constantly. Oneday he announced that he was "discontented" once more, and shouldremain so till he had "found a hose-in-hose. " I enticed him to a fieldwhere I knew it was possible to secure an occasional oxlip, but heonly looked pale, shook his head distressingly, and said, "I don'tthink nothin' of Oxlips. " Coloured primroses would not comfort him. Heprofessed to disbelieve in the time-honoured prescription, "Plant aprimrose upside down, and it will come up a polyanthus, " and refusedto help me to make the experiment. At last the worst came. He suddenlyspoke, with smiles--"I _know_ where we'll find hose-in-hose! InMary's Meadow. It's the fullest field of cowslips there is. Hurrah!Supposing we find hose-in-hose, and supposing we find green cowslips, and supposing we find curled cowslips or galligaskins, andsupposing--"

But I could not bear it, I fairly ran away from him, and shut myselfup in my room and cried. I knew it was silly, and yet I could not bearthe thought of having to satisfy everybody's curiosity, and describethat scene in Mary's Meadow, which had wounded me so bitterly, andexplain why I had not told of it before. 

I cried, too, for another reason. Mary's Meadow had been dear to usall, ever since I could remember. It was always our favourite field. We had coaxed our nurses there, when we could induce them to leave thehigh-road, or when, luckily for us, on account of an epidemic, or forsome reason or another, they were forbidden to go gossiping into thetown. We had "pretended" fairies in the nooks of the delightfullyneglected hedges, and we had found fairy-rings to prove ourpretendings true. We went there for flowers; we went there formushrooms and puff-balls; we went there to hear the nightingale. Whatcowslip balls and what cowslip tea-parties it had afforded us! It isfair to the Old Squire to say that we were sad trespassers, before heand Father quarrelled and went to law. For Mary's Meadow was a fieldwith every quality to recommend it to childish affections. 

And now I was banished from it, not only by the quarrel, of which wehad really not heard much, or realized it as fully, but by my ownbitter memories. I cried afresh to think I should never go again tothe corner where I always found the earliest violets; and then I criedto think that the nightingale would soon be back, and how that verymorning, when I opened my window, I had heard the cuckoo, and couldtell that he was calling from just about Mary's Meadow. 

I cried my eyes into such a state, that I was obliged to turn myattention to making them fit to be seen; and I had spent quitehalf-an-hour in bathing them and breathing on my handkerchief, anddabbing them, which is more soothing, when I heard Mother calling me. I winked hard, drew a few long breaths, rubbed my cheeks, which wereso white they showed up my red eyes, and ran down-stairs. Mother wascoming to meet me. She said--"Where is Christopher?"

It startled me. I said, "He was with me in the garden, about--oh, about an hour ago; have you lost him? I'll go and look for him. "

And I snatched up a garden hat, which shaded my swollen eyelids, andran out. I could not find him anywhere, and becoming frightened, Iran down the drive, calling him as I went, and through the gate, andout into the road. 

A few yards farther on I met him. 

That child is most extraordinary. One minute he looks like a ghost; anhour later his face is beaming with a radiance that seems absolutelyto fatten him under your eyes. That was how he looked just then as hecame towards me, smiling in an effulgent sort of way, as if he werethe noonday sun--no less, and carrying a small nosegay in his hand. 

When he came within hearing he boasted, as if he had been Cæsarhimself--

"I went; I found it. I've got them. "

And as he held his hand up, and waved the nosegay--I knew all. He hadbeen to Mary's Meadow, and the flowers between his fingers werehose-in-hose. 

CHAPTER XII. 

"I won't be selfish, Mary, " Christopher said. "You invented the game, and you told me about them. You shall have them in water on yourdressing-table; they might get lost in the nursery. Bessy is alwaysthrowing things out. To-morrow I shall go and look for galligaskins. "

I was too glad to keep them from Bessy's observation, as well as herunparalleled powers of destruction, which I knew well. I put them intoa slim glass on my table, and looked stupidly at them, and then out ofthe window at Mary's Meadow. 

So they had lived--and grown--and settled there--and were now inbloom. _My_ plants. 

Next morning I was sitting, drawing, in the school-room window, when Isaw the Old Squire coming up the drive. There is no mistaking him whenyou can see him at all. He is a big, handsome old man, with whitewhiskers, and a white hat, and white gaiters, and he generally wears alight coat, and a flower in his button-hole. The flower he wore thismorning looked like--, but I was angry with myself for thinking of it, and went on drawing again, as well as I could, for I could not helpwondering why he was coming to our house. Then it struck me he mighthave seen Chris trespassing, and he might be coming at last to lay aformal complaint. 

Twenty minutes later James came to tell me that Father wished to seeme in the library, and when I got there, Father was just settling hiseye-glass in his eye, and the Old Squire was standing on thehearth-rug, with a big piece of paper in his hand. And then I saw thatI was right, and that the flowers in his button-hole werehose-in-hose. 

As I came in he laid down the paper, took the hose-in-hose out of hisbutton-hole in his left hand, and held out his right hand to me, saying: "I'm more accustomed to public speaking than to privatespeaking, Miss Mary. But--will you be friends with me?"

In Mary's Meadow my head had got all confused, because I wasfrightened. I was not frightened to-day, and I saw the whole matter ina moment. He had found the double cowslips, and he knew now that I wasneither a liar nor a thief. I was glad, but I could not feel veryfriendly to him. I said, "You can speak when you are angry. "

Though he was behind me, I could feel Father coming nearer, and Iknew somehow that he had taken out his glass again to rub it and putit back, as he does when he is rather surprised or amused. I wasafraid he meant to laugh at me afterwards, and he can tease terribly, but I could not have helped saying what came into my head that morningif I had tried. When you have suffered a great deal about anything, you cannot sham, not even politeness. 

The Old Squire got rather red. Then he said, "I am afraid I am veryhasty, my dear, and say very unjustifiable things. But I am verysorry, and I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me?"

I said, "Of course, if you're sorry, I forgive you, but you have beena very long time in repenting. "

Which was true. If I had been cross with one, of the others, and hadborne malice for five months, I should have thought myself verywicked. But when I had said it, I felt sorry, for the old gentlemanmade no answer. Father did not speak either, and I began to feel verymiserable. I touched the flowers, and the Old Squire gave them to mein silence. I thanked him very much, and then I said--

"I am very glad you know about it now. . . . I'm very glad they lived . . . I hope you like them?. . . I hope, if you do like them, that they'llgrow and spread all over your field. "

The Old Squire spoke at last. He said, "It is not my field anylonger. "

I said, "Oh, why?"

"I have given it away; I have been a long time in repenting, but whenI did repent I punished myself. I have given it away. "

It overwhelmed me, and when he took up the big paper again, I thoughthe was going, and I tried to stop him, for I was sorry I had spokenunkindly to him, and I wanted to be friends. 

"Please don't go, " I said. "Please stop and be friends. And oh, please, please don't give Mary's Meadow away. You mustn't punishyourself. There's nothing to punish yourself for. I forgive you withall my heart, and I'm sorry I spoke crossly. I have been so verymiserable, and I was so vexed at wasting the hose-in-hose, becauseBessy's great-aunt gave them to me, and I've none left. Oh, theunkindest thing you could do to me now would be to give away Mary'sMeadow. "

The Old Squire had taken both my hands in his, and now he asked verykindly--"Why, my dear, why don't you want me to give away Mary'sMeadow?"

"Because we are so fond of it. And because I was beginning to hopethat now we're friends, and you know we don't want to steal yourthings, or to hurt your field, perhaps you would let us play in itsometimes, and perhaps have Saxon to play with us there. We are sovery fond of him too. "

"You are fond of Mary's Meadow?" said the Old Squire. 

"Yes, yes! We have been fond of it all our lives. We don't think thereis any field like it, and I don't believe there can be. Don't give itaway. You'll never get one with such flowers in it again. And nowthere are hose-in-hose, and they are not at all common. Bessy's aunt'saunt has only got one left, and she's taking care of it with a shovel. And if you'll let us in we'll plant a lot of things, and do no harm, we will indeed. And the nightingale will be here directly. Oh, don'tgive it away!"

My head was whirling now with the difficulty of persuading him, and Idid not hear what he said across me to my father. But I heard Father'sreply--"Tell her yourself, sir. "

On which the Old Squire stuffed the big paper into my arms, and puthis hand on my head and patted it. 

"I told you I was a bad hand at talking, my dear, " he said, "butMary's Meadow is given away, and that's the Deed of Gift which you'vegot in your arms, drawn up as tight as any rascal of a lawyer can doit, and that's not so tight, I believe, but what some other rascal ofa lawyer could undo it. However, they may let you alone. For I'vegiven it to you, my dear, and it is yours. So you can plant, and play, and do what you please there. 'You, and your heirs and assigns, forever, ' as the rascals say. "

It was my turn now to be speechless. But as I stared blankly in frontof me, I saw that Father had come round, and was looking at me throughhis eye-glass. He nodded to me, and said, "Yes, Mary, the Squire hasgiven Mary's Meadow to you, and it is yours. "

 * * * * *

Nothing would induce the Old Squire to take it back, so I had to haveit, for my very own. He said he had always been sorry he had spoken soroughly to me, but he could not say so, as he and Father were not onspeaking terms. Just lately he was dining with Lady Catherine, to meether cousins from the barracks, and she was telling people after dinnerabout our game (rather mean of her, I think, to let out our secrets ata dinner-party), and when he heard about my planting things in thehedges, he remembered what I had said. And next day he went to theplace to look, and there were the hose-in-hose. 

Oh, how delighted the others were when they heard that Mary's Meadowbelonged to me. 

"It's like having an Earthly Paradise given to you, straight off!"said Harry. 

"And one that doesn't want weeding, " said Adela. 

"And oh, Mary, Mary!" cried Arthur. "Think of the yards and yards oftop-spit. It does rejoice me to think I can go to you now when I'm makingcompost, and need not be beholden to that old sell-up-your-grandfather Johnfor as much as would fill Adela's weeding basket, and that's about as smallan article as any one can make-believe with. "

"It's very heavy when it's full, " said Adela. 

"Is everything hers?" asked Christopher. "Is the grass hers, and thetrees hers, and the hedges hers, and the rooks hers, and the starlinghers, and will the nightingale be hers when he comes home, and if shecould dig through to the other side of the world, would there be afield the same size in Australia that would be hers, and are the sheephers, and--"

"For mercy's sake stop that catalogue, Chris, " said Father. "Of coursethe sheep are not hers; they were moved yesterday. By the bye, Mary, Idon't know what you propose to do with your property, but if you liketo let it to me, I'll turn some sheep in to-morrow, and I'll pay youso much a year, which I advise you to put into the Post Office SavingsBank. "

I couldn't fancy Mary's Meadow always without sheep, so I was toothankful; though at first I could not see that it was fair that dearFather should let me have his sheep to look pretty in my field fornothing, and pay me, too. He is always teasing me about my field, andhe teases me a good deal about the Squire, too. He says we have set upanother queer friendship in the family, and that the Old Squire and Iare as odd a pair as Aunt Catherine and Chris. 

I am very fond of the Old Squire now, and he is very kind to me. Hewants to give me Saxon, but I will not accept him. It would beselfish. But the Old Squire says I had better take him, for we havequite spoilt him for a yard dog by petting him, till he has not a bitof savageness left in him. We do not believe Saxon ever was savage;but I daren't say so to the Old Squire, for he does not like you tothink you know better than he does about anything. There is one othersubject on which he expects to be humoured, and I am careful not tooffend him. He cannot tolerate the idea that he might be supposed tohave yielded to Father the point about which they went to law, ingiving Mary's Meadow to me. He is always lecturing me onencroachments, and the abuse of privileges, and warning me to be verystrict about trespassers on the path through Mary's Meadow; and nowthat the field is mine, nothing will induce him to walk in it withoutasking my leave. That is his protest against the decision from whichhe meant to appeal. 

Though I have not accepted Saxon, he spends most of his time with us. He likes to come for the night, because he sleeps on the floor of myroom, instead of in a kennel, which must be horrid, I am sure. Yesterday, the Old Squire said, "One of these fine days, when MasterSaxon does not come home till morning, he'll find a big mastiff in hiskennel, and will have to seek a home for himself where he can. "

Chris has been rather whimsical lately. Father says Lady Catherinespoils him. One day he came to me, looking very peevish, and said, "Mary, if a hedgehog should come and live in one of your hedges, Michael says he would be yours, he's sure. If Michael finds him, willyou give him to me?"

"Yes, Chris; but what do you want with a hedgehog?"

"I want him to sleep by my bed, " said Chris. "You have Saxon by yourbed; I want something by mine. I want a hedgehog. I feel discontentedwithout a hedgehog. I think I might have something the matter with mybrain if I didn't get a hedgehog pretty soon. Can I go with Michaeland look for him this afternoon?" and he put his hand to his forehead. 

"Chris, Chris!" I said, "you should not be so sly. You're a realslyboots. Double-stockings and slyboots. " And I took him on my lap. 

Chris put his arms round my neck, and buried his cheek against mine. 

"I won't be sly, Mary, " he whispered; and then, hugging me as he hugsLady Catherine, he added, "For I do love you; for you are a darling, and I do really think it always was yours. "

"What, Chris?"

"If not, " said Chris, "why was it always called MARY'S MEADOW?"

LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN. 

LETTER I. 

 "All is fine that is fit. "_--Old Proverb. _

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, When, with the touching confidence of youth, that your elders havemade-up as well as grown-up minds on all subjects, you asked myopinion on _Ribbon-gardening_, the above proverb came into my head, tothe relief of its natural tendency to see an inconvenient number ofsides to every question. The more I reflect upon it, the more I amconvinced it is a comfortably compact confession of my faith on allmatters decorative, and thence on the decoration of gardens. 

I take some credit to myself for having the courage of my moderation, since you obviously expect a more sweeping reply. The bedding-outsystem is in bad odour just now; and you ask, "Wasn't it hideous?"and "Wasn't it hateful?" and "Will it ever come into fashion again, tothe re-extermination of the dear old-fashioned flowers which we arenow slowly, and with pains, recalling from banishment?"

To discover one's own deliberate opinion upon a subject is not alwayseasy--prophetic opinions one must refuse to offer. But I feel no doubtwhatever that the good lady who shall coddle this little garden atsome distant date after me will be quite as fond of her borders as Iam of mine; and I suspect that these will be about as like each otheras our respective best bonnets. 

The annals of Fashion must always be full of funny stories. I know twoof the best amateur gardeners of the day; they are father and son. Thefather, living _and gardening_ still (he sent me a specimen lilylately by parcel post, and is beholden to no one for help, either withpacking or addressing, in his constant use of this new convenience), is making good way between ninety and a hundred years of age. What wecall old-fashioned flowers were the pets of his youth. About the timewhen ribbon-bordering "came in, " he changed his residence, and, in thegarden where he had cultivated countless kinds of perennials, his sonreigned in his stead. The horticultural taste proved hereditary, butin the younger man it took the impress of the fashion of his day. Away went the "herbaceous stuff" on to rubbish heaps, and the borderswere soon gay with geraniums, and kaleidoscopic with calceolarias. But"the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges, " and, perhaps, a reallove for flowers could never, in the nature of things, have beenfinally satisfied by the dozen or by the score; so it came to passthat the garden is once more herbaceous, and far-famed as such. Thefather--a _perennial_ gardener in more senses than one, long may heflourish!--has told me, chuckling, of many a penitential pilgrimage tothe rubbish heaps, if haply fragments could be found of the herbaceoustreasures which had been so rashly cast away. 

Doubtless there were many restorations. Abandoned "bedding stuff" soonperishes, but uprooted clumps of "herbaceous stuff" linger long inshady corners, and will sometimes flower pathetically on the heapwhere they have been thrown to rot. 

I once saw a fine Queen Anne country house--an old one; not a modernimitation. Chippendale had made the furniture. He had worked in thehouse. Whether the chairs and tables were beautiful or not is a matterof taste, but they were well made and seasoned; so, like theherbaceous stuff, they were hardy. The next generation decided thatthey were ugly. New chairs and tables were bought, and the Chippendale"stuff" was sent up into the maids' bedrooms, and down to the men's. It drifted into the farmhouses and cottages on the estate. No doubt agood deal was destroyed. The caprices of fashion are not confined toone class, and the lower classes are the more prodigal anddestructive. I have seen the remains of Elizabethan bedsteads underhay-ricks, and untold "old oak" has fed the cottage fire. I once askeda village maiden why the people made firewood of carved arm-chairs, when painted pinewood, upholstered in American cloth, is, if lovelier, not so lasting. Her reply was--"They get stalled on[3] 'em. " And sheadded: "Maybe a man 'll look at an old arm-chair that's stood on t'hearth-place as long as he can remember, and he'll say--I'm fair sicko' t' seet o' _yon_. We mun have a new 'un for t' Feast. _I'll chopthee oop_!'"

[Footnote 3: "Stalled on" = tired of. "T' feast" = the village feast, an annual festival and fair, for which most houses in that districtare cleaned within and whitewashed without. ]

Possibly some of the Chippendale chairs also fell to the hatchet andfed the flames, but most of them bore neglect as well as hardyperennials, and when Queen Anne houses and "old Chips" came intofashion again, there was routing and rummaging from attic to cellar, in farmhouse and cottage, and the banished furniture went triumphantlyback to its own place. 

I first saw single dahlias in some "little gardens" in Cheshire, fiveor six years ago. No others had ever been cultivated there. In thesequiet nooks the double dahlia was still a new-fangled flower. If thesingle dahlias yet hold their own, those little gardens must now findthemselves in the height of the floral fashion, with the unusual luckof the conservative old woman who "wore her bonnet till the fashionscame round again. "

It is such little gardens which have kept for us the Blue Primrose, thehighly fragrant Summer Roses (including Rose de Meaux, and the red andcopper Briar), countless beautiful varieties of Daffy-down-dillies, and allthe host of sweet, various and hardy flowers which are now returning, likethe Chippendale chairs, from the village to the hall. 

It is still in cottage gardens chiefly that the Crown Imperial hangsits royal head. One may buy small sheaves of it in the Tauntonmarket-place on early summer Saturdays. What a stately flower it is!and, in the paler variety, of what an exquisite yellow! I always fancy_Fritillaria Imperialis flava_ to be dressed in silk from the FloweryLand--that robe of imperial yellow which only General Gordon and theblood royal of China are entitled to wear!

"All is fine that is fit. " And is the "bedding-out"system--Ribbon-gardening--ever fit, and therefore ever fine? Mylittle friend, I am inclined to think that it sometimes is. For longstraight borders in parks and public promenades, for some terracegarden on a large scale, viewed perhaps from windows at a considerabledistance, and, in a general way, for pleasure-grounds ordered byprofessional skill, and not by an _amateur_ gardener (which, mark you, being interpreted, is gardener _for love_!), the bedding-out style_is_ good for general effect, and I think it is capable of prettieringenuities than one often sees employed in its use. I think that, ifI ever gardened in this expensive and mechanical style, I should make"arrangements, " à la Whistler, with flowers of various shades of thesame colour. But harmony and gradation of colour always give me morepleasure than contrast. 

Then, besides the fitness of the gardening to the garden, there is thefitness of the garden to its owner; and the owner must be consideredfrom two points of view, his taste, and his means. Indeed, I think itwould be fair to add a third, his leisure. 

Now, there are owners of big gardens and little gardens, who like tohave a garden (what Englishman does not?), and like to see it gay andtidy, but who don't know one flower from the rest. On the other hand, some scientists are acquainted with botany and learned inhorticulture. They know every plant and its value, but they carelittle about tidiness. Cut flowers are feminine frivolities in theireyes, and they count nosegays as childish gauds, like daisy chains andcowslip balls. They are not curious in colours, and do not know whichflowers are fragrant and which are scentless. For them every garden isa botanical garden. Then, many persons fully appreciate the beauty andthe scent of flowers, and enjoy selecting and arranging them for aroom, who can't abide to handle a fork or meddle with mother earth. Others again, amongst whom I number myself, love not only the lore offlowers, and the sight of them, and the fragrance of them, and thegrowing of them, and the picking of them, and the arranging of them, but also inherit from Father Adam a natural relish for tilling theground from whence they were taken and to which they shall return. 

With little persons in little gardens, having also little strength andlittle leisure, this husbandry may not exceed the small uses of forkand trowel, but the earth-love is there, all the same. I rememberonce, coming among some family papers upon an old letter from mygrandmother to my grandfather. She was a clever girl (she did notoutlive youth), and the letter was natural and full of energy andpoint. My grandfather seems to have apologized to his bride for thedisorderly state of the garden to which she was about to-go home, andin reply she quaintly and vehemently congratulates herself upon thisunpromising fact. For--"I do so dearly love _grubbing_. " This touchesanother point. She was a botanist, and painted a little. So were mostof the lady gardeners of her youth. The education of women was, as arule, poor enough in those days; but a study of "the Linnean system"was among the elegant accomplishments held to "become a young woman";and one may feel pretty sure that even a smattering of botanicalknowledge, and the observation needed for third or fourth-rateflower-painting, would tend to a love of variety in beds and borderswhich Ribbon-gardening would by no means satisfy. _Lobelia erinusspeciosa_ does make a wonderfully smooth blue stripe in sufficientquantities, but that would not console any one who knew or had painted_Lobelia cardinalis_, and _fulgens_, for the banishment of these fromthe garden. 

I think we may dismiss Ribbon-gardening as unfit for a botanist, orfor any one who happens to like _grubbing_, or tending his flowers. 

Is it ever "fit" in a little garden?

Well, if the owner has either no taste for gardening, or no time, itmay be the shortest and brightest plan to get some nurseryman near tofill the little beds and borders with Spring bedding plants forSpring (and let me note that this _Spring bedding_, which is of laterdate than the first rage for ribbon-borders, had to draw its suppliesvery largely from "herbaceous stuff, " _myosotis_, _viola_, _aubretia_, _iberis_, &c. , and may have paved the way for the return of hardyperennials into favour), and with Tom Thumb Geranium, Blue Lobelia, and Yellow Calceolaria for the summer and autumn. These latter aremost charming plants. They are very gay and persistent whilst theylast, and it is not their fault that they cannot stand our winters. They are no invalids till frost comes. With my personal predilections, I like even "bedding stuff" best in variety. The varieties of what wecall geraniums are many and most beautiful. I should always prefer agroup of individual specimens to a band of one. And never have I seenthe canary yellow of calceolarias to such advantage as in an"old-fashioned" rectory-garden in Yorkshire, where they were cunninglyused as points of brilliancy at corners of beds mostly filled with"hardy herbaceous stuff. "

But there, again, one begins to spend time and taste! Let us admitthat, if a little garden must be made gay by the neighbouringnurseryman, it will look very bright, on the "ribbon" system, at aminimum cost of time and trouble--_but not of money!_

Even for a little garden, bedding plants are very expensive. For youmust either use plenty, or leave it alone. A ragged ribbon-border canhave no admirers. 

If time and money are both lacking, and horticulture is not a hobby, divide what sum you are prepared to spend on your little garden intwo. Lay out half in making good soil, and spend the rest on a limitedrange of hardy plants. If mother earth is well fed, and if you havegot her _deep down_, and not a surface layer of half a foot on asubstratum of builder's rubbish, she will take care of every plant youcommit to her hold. I should give up the back of the borders (if theaspect is east or south) to a few very good "perpetual" roses to cutfrom; dwarfs, not standards; and for the line of colour in front itwill be no great trouble to arrange roughly to have red, white, blue, and yellow alternately. 

One of the best cheap bedders is Pink Catchfly (_Silene pendula_). Itsrosy cushions are as neat and as lasting as Blue Lobelia. It is ahardy annual, but the plants should be autumn sown of the year before. It flowers early and long, and its place might be taken for the autumnby scarlet dwarf nasturtiums, or clumps of geranium. Pink Catchfly, Blue Forget-me-not, White Arabis, and Yellow Viola would make gay anySpring border. Then to show, to last, and to cut from, few flowersrival the self-coloured pansies (Viola class). Blue, white, purple, and yellow alternately, they are charming, and if in good soil, wellwatered in drought, and constantly cut from, they bloom the wholesummer long. And some of them are very fragrant. The secret of successwith these is never to leave a flower to go to seed. They are not cutoff by autumnal frosts. On the contrary, you can take them up, anddivide, and reset, and send a portion to other little gardens wherethey are lacking. 

All mine (and they have been very gay this year and very sweet) I oweto the bounty of friends who garden _non sibi sed toti_. 

Lastly, if there is even a very little taste and time to spare, surelynothing can be so satisfactory as a garden full of such flowers as (inthe words of John Parkinson) "our English ayre will permitt to benoursed up. " Bearing in mind these counsels:

Make a wise selection of hardy plants. Grow only good sorts, and ofthese choose what suit your soil and climate. Give them space and goodfeeding. Disturb the roots as little as possible, and cut the flowersconstantly. Then they will be fine as well as fit. 

Good-bye, Little Friend, Yours, &c. 

LETTER II. 

 "The tropics may have their delights; but they have not turf, and the world without turf is a dreary desert. The original Garden of Eden could not have had such turf as one sees in England. 

 * * * * *

 "Woman always did, from the first, make a muss in a garden. 

 * * * * *

 "Nevertheless, what a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. "

_Pusley; or, My Summer in a Garden_. --C. D. WARNER. 

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, Do you know the little book from which these sayings are quoted? It isone you can laugh over by yourself, again and again. A very goodspecimen of that curious, new-world kind of wit--American humour; andalso full of the truest sense of natural beauty and of gardeningdelights. 

Mr. Warner is not complimentary to woman's work in the garden, thoughhe displays all the graceful deference of his countrymen to the weakersex. In the charming dedication to his wife, whilst desiring "toacknowledge an influence which has lent half the charm to my labour, "he adds: "If I were in a court of justice, or injustice, under oath, Ishould not like to say that, either in the wooing days of spring, orunder the suns of the summer solstice, you had been, either with hoe, rake, or miniature spade, of the least use in the garden. " Perhaps ourfair cousins on the other side of the Atlantic do not _grub_ soenergetically as we do. Certainly, with us it is very common for theladies of the family to be the practical gardeners, the master of thehouse caring chiefly for a good general effect, with tidy walks andgrassplots, and displaying less of that almost maternal solicitudewhich does bring flowers to perfection. 

I have sometimes thought that it would be a good division of labour ina Little Garden, if, where Joan coddles the roses and rears theseedlings, Darby would devote some of his leisure to the walks andgrassplots. 

Few things in one's garden are pleasanter to one's own eye, or gainmore admiration from others, than well-kept turf. Green grass is oneof the charms of the British Isles, which are emerald islesthroughout, though Ireland is so _par excellence_. It is so much amatter of course to us that we hardly realize this till we hear orread what foreigners say about it, and also our own American andcolonial cousins. We go abroad and revel in real sunshine, and comehome with glowing memories to abuse our own cloudy skies; but theycome from burnt-up landscapes to refresh their eyes with our perpetualgreen. 

Even a little grassplot well repays pains and care. If you have tomake it, never use cheap seed. Buy the very best from seedsmen ofrepute, or you will get a conglomeration of weeds instead of agreensward of fine grasses and white clover. Trench the ground to an_even_ depth, tread it firm, and have light, finely-sifted soiluppermost. Sow thickly early in April, cover lightly, and protect frombirds. If the soil is good, and the seed first-rate, your sward willbe green the first season. 

Turfs make a lawn somewhat quicker than seed. The best are cut fromthe road-side, but it is a hateful despoiling of one of the fairest oftravellers' joys. Those who commit this highway robbery should reckonthemselves in honour bound to sow the bare places they leave behind. Some people cut the pieces eighteen inches square, some about a yardlong and twelve inches wide. Cut thin, roll up like thinbread-and-butter. When they are laid down, fit close together, likebits of a puzzle, and roll well after laying. If they gape withshrinking, fill in between with finely-sifted soil, and roll again andagain. 

Strictly speaking, a grassplot should be all grass, grass and a littlewhite clover. "Soldiers" (of the plantain type) are not to betolerated on a lawn, but I have a weak corner for dog-daisies. I onceowned a little garden in Canada, but never a dog-daisy grew there. Alady I knew had one--in a pot--sent from "Home. " But even if you havea sentimental fondness for "the pretty things" (as their botanicalname signifies), and like to see their little white faces peeping outof the grass, this must not be carried too far. In some soilsdog-daisies will soon devour the whole lawn. 

How are they, and "soldiers, " and other weeds to be extirpated? Thereare many nostrums, but none so effectual as a patient digging up (witha long "daisy fork") of plant after plant _by the roots_. The wholefamily party and any chance visitors will not be too many for thework, and, if each labourer is provided with a cast-iron back with ahinge in it, so much the better. A writer in the _Garden_ seems tohave been very successful with salt, used early in the season and withgreat care. He says: "After the first cutting in the spring put asmuch salt on each weed, through the palm of the hand, as willdistinctly cover it. In two or three days, depending on the weather, they will turn brown. Those weeds that have escaped can be distinctlyseen, and the operation should be repeated. The weeds thus treateddie, and in about three weeks the grass will have grown, and therewill not be a vestige of disturbance left. Two years ago I converteda rough pasture into a tennis-ground for six courts. Naturally theturf was a mass of rough weeds. It took three days to salt them, andthe result was curiously successful. "

Another prescription is to cut off the crowns of the offending plants, and dose them with a few drops of carbolic acid. 

Grass will only grow dense by constant cutting and moisture. Thescythe works best when the grass is wet, and the machine when it isdry. Sweep it and roll it during the winter. Pick off stones, sticks, or anything that "has no business" on it, as you would pick "bits" offa carpet. 

If grass grows rank and coarse, a dressing of sand will improve it; ifit is poor and easily burned up, give it a sprinkling of soot, orguano, or wood ashes (or all three mixed) before rain. "Slops" are aswelcome to parched grass as to half-starved flowers. If the weather ishot and the soil light, it is well occasionally to leave the shortclippings of one mowing upon the lawn to protect the roots. 

I do not know if it becomes unmanageable, but, in moderation, I thinkcamomile a very charming intruder on a lawn, and the aromatic scentwhich it yields to one's tread to be very grateful in the open air. Itis pleasant, too, to have a knoll or a bank somewhere, where thyme cangrow among the grass. But the subject of flowers that grow wellthrough grass is a large one. It is one also on which the members ofour Parkinson Society would do kindly to give us any exceptionalexperiences, especially in reference to flowers which not onlyflourish among grass, but do not resent being mown down. The lovelyblue windflower (_Anemone Apennina_) is, I believe, one of these. 

There is no doubt that now and then plants prefer to meet with alittle resistance, and despise a bed that is made too comfortable. Self-sown ones often come up much more vigorously through the hardpath than when the seed has fallen within the border. The way to growthe parsley fern is said to be to clap a good big stone on his crownvery early in the spring, and let him struggle out at all corners fromunderneath it. It is undoubtedly a comfort to rock-plants and creepingthings to be planted with a stone over their feet to keep them cool!

Which reminds me of stones for bordering. I think they make the bestof all edgings for a Little Garden. Box-edgings are the prettiest, butthey are expensive, require good keeping, and harbour slugs. For thatmatter, most things seem to harbour slugs in any but a very dryclimate, and there are even more prescriptions for their destructionthan that of lawn weeds. I don't think lime does much, nor soot. Wetsoon slakes them. Thick slices of turnip are attractive. Slugs reallydo seem to like them, even better than one's favourite seedlings. Little heaps of bran also, and young lettuces. My slugs do not carefor cabbage leaves, and they are very untidy. Put thick slices ofturnip near your auriculas, favourite primroses and polyanthuses, andChristmas roses, and near anything tender and not well established, and overhaul them early in the morning. "You can't get up too early, if you have a garden, " says Mr. Warner; and he adds: "Things appear togo on in the night in the garden uncommonly. It would be less troubleto stay up than it is to get up so early!"

To return to stone edgings. When quite newly laid, like miniaturerockwork, they are, perhaps, the least bit cockneyfied, and suggestiveof something between oyster-shell borderings and mock ruins. But thiseffect very rapidly disappears as they bury themselves in cushions ofpink catch-fly (v. _compacta_), or low-growing pinks, tiny campanulas, yellow viola, London pride, and the vast variety of rock-plants, "alpines, " and low-growing "herbaceous stuff, " which delight insqueezing up to a big cool stone that will keep a little moisture fortheir rootlets in hot summer weather. This is a much more interestingkind of edging than any one kind of plant can make, I think, and in aLittle Garden it is like an additional border, leaving the other freefor bigger plants. If one kind is preferred, for a light soil there isnothing like thrift. And the white thrift is very silvery and morebeautiful than the pink. There is a large thrift, too, which ishandsome. But I prefer stones, and I like varieties of colour--bits ofgrey boulder, and red and yellow sandstone. 

I like warm colour also on the walks. I should always have red walksif I could afford them. There is a red material, the result of someprocess of burning, which we used to get in the iron and coaldistricts of Yorkshire, which I used to think very pretty, but I donot know what it is called. 

Good walks are a great luxury. It is a wise economy to go round yourwalks after rain and look for little puddles; make a note of where thewater lodges and fill it up. Keep gratings swept. If the grating isfree and there is an overflow not to be accounted for, it is verypossible that a drain-pipe somewhere is choke-full of the roots ofsome tree. 

Some people advise hacking up your walks from time to time, and otherpeople advise you not. Some people say there is nothing like salt todestroy walk weeds and moss, and brighten the gravel, and some peoplesay that salt in the long run feeds the ground and the weeds. I amdisposed to think that, in a Little Garden, there is nothing like aweeding woman with an old knife and a little salt afterwards. It isalso advisable to be your own weeding woman, that you may be sure thatthe weeds come up by the roots! Next to the cast-iron back beforementioned, I recommend a housemaid's kneeling mat (such as is used forscrubbing floors), as a gardener's comfort. 

I hope, if you have been bulb planting, that you got them all in byLord Mayor's Day. Whether bulbs should be planted deep or shallow isanother "vexed question. " In a Little Garden, where you don't want todisturb them, and may like to plant out some small-rooted annuals onthe top of them later on, I should plant deep. 

If you are planting roses, remember that two or three, carefullyplanted in good stuff that goes deep, will pay you better than sixtimes the number stuck _into a hole_ in cold clay or sand or builders'rubbish, and left to push their rootlets as best they can, or perishin the attempt. Spread out these rootlets very tenderly when planting. You will reap the reward of your gentleness in flowers. Rose rootsdon't like being squeezed, like a Chinese lady's feet. I was taughtthis by one who knows, --He has a good name for the briar suckers andsprouts which I hope you carefully cut off from your graftedroses, --He calls it "the old Adam!"

Yours, &c. 

LETTER III. 

 "A good rule Is a good tool. "

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, January is not a month in which you are likely to be doing much inyour Little Garden. Possibly a wet blanket of snow lies thick andwhite over all its hopes and anxieties. No doubt you made all tidy, and some things warm, for the winter, in the delicious opportunitiesof St. Luke's and St. Martin's little summers, and, like the amusingAmerican I told you of, "turned away writing _resurgam_ on thegate-post. "

I write _resurgam_ on labels, and put them wherever bulbs lie buried, or such herbaceous treasures as die down, and are, in consequence, toooften treated as mere mortal remains of the departed, by theundiscriminating hand of the jobbing gardener. 

Winter is a good time to make plans, and to put them down in yourGarden-book. Have you a Garden-book? A note-book, I mean, devoted togarden memoranda. It is a very useful kind of commonplace book, andsoon becomes as fascinating as autumn and spring catalogues. 

One has to learn to manage even a Little Garden chiefly by experience, which is sure teaching, if slow. Books and gardeners are helpful; but, like other doctors, they differ. I think one is often slower to learnanything than one need be, from not making at once for firstprinciples. If one knew more of these, it would be easier to applyone's own experience, and to decide amid conflicting advice. 

Here are a few rough-and-ready "first principles" for you. 

_Hardy flowers in hedges and ditches are partly fed, and are alsocovered from cold and heat, and winds, and drought, by fallen leavesand refuse. Hardy flowers in gardens have all this tidied away fromthem, and, being left somewhat hungry and naked in proportion, are allthe better for an occasional top-dressing and mulching, especially inautumn. _ It is not absolutely necessary to turn a flower border upsidedown and dig it over every year. It may (for some years at any rate), if you find this more convenient, be treated on the hedge system, and_fed from the top_; thinning big clumps, pulling up weeds, moving andremoving in detail. 

_Concentrated strength means large blooms. _ If a plant is ripeningseed, some strength goes to that; if bursting into many blooms, somegoes to each of them; if it is trying to hold up against blusteringwinds, or to thrive on exhausted ground, or to straighten out crampedand clogged roots, these struggles also demand strength. Moral: Plantcarefully, support your tall plants, keep all your plants in easycircumstances, don't put them to the trouble of ripening seed (unlessyou specially want it). To this end cut off fading flowers, and alsocut off buds in places where they would not show well when they cameout, and all this economized strength will go into the blossoms thatremain. 

_You cannot grow everything. Grow what suits your soil and climate, and the best kinds of these, as well as you can. _ You may make soil tosuit a plant, but you cannot make the climate to suit it, and someflowers are more fastidious about the air they breathe than about thesoil they feed upon. There are, however, scores of sturdy, handsomeflowers, as hardy as Highlanders, which will thrive in almost anysoil, and under all the variations of climate of the British Isles. Some will even endure the smoke-laden atmosphere of towns and townsuburbs; which, sooner or later, is certain death to so many. It is apity that small florists and greengrocers in London do not know moreabout this; and it would be a great act of kindness to them and totheir customers to instruct them. Then, instead of encouraging theruthless slaughter of primroses, scores and hundreds of plants ofwhich are torn up and then sold in a smoky atmosphere to which theynever adapt themselves, these small shopkeepers might offer plants ofthe many beautiful varieties of poppies, from the grand _Orientalis_onwards, chrysanthemums, stocks, wall-flowers, Canterbury bells, salvias, oenotheras, snapdragons, perennial lobelias, iris, andother plants which are known to be very patient under a long course ofsoot. Most of the hardy Californian annuals bear town life well. Perhaps because they have only to bear it for a year. _Convolvulusmajor_--the Morning Glory, as our American cousins so prettily callit--flourishes on a smutty wall as generously as the Virginiancreeper. 

_North borders are safest in winter. _ They are free from the dangerousalternation of sunshine and frost. Put things of doubtful hardihoodunder a north wall, with plenty of sandy soil or ashes over theirroots, some cinders on that, and perhaps a little light protection, like bracken, in front of them, and their chances will not be bad. Apropos to tender things, if your Little Garden is in a cold part ofthe British Isles, and has ungenial conditions of soil and aspect, don't try to keep tender things out of doors in winter; but, if it isin the south or west of the British Isles, I should be tempted to verywide experiments with lots of plants not commonly reckoned "hardy. "Where laurels flower freely you will probably be successful eightyears out of ten. Most fuchsias, and tender things which _die down_, may be kept. 

_Very little will keep Jack Frost out, if he has not yet been in_, either in the garden or the house. A "hot bottle" will keep frost outof a small room where one has stored geraniums, &c. , so will a smallparaffin lamp (which--N. B. --will also keep water-pipes fromcatastrophe). How I have toiled, in my young days, with these samehot-water bottles in a cupboard off the nursery, which was my nearestapproach to a greenhouse! And how sadly I have experienced that whereMr. Frost goes out Mr. Mould is apt to slink in! Truly, as Mr. Warnersays, "the gardener needs all the consolations of a high philosophy!"

It is a great satisfaction if things _will_ live out of doors. And ina _little_ garden a good deal of coddling may be done. I am going toget some round fruit hampers to turn over certain tender pets thiswinter. When one has one's flowers by the specimen and not by thescore, such cosseting is possible. Ashes and cinders are excellentprotection for the roots, and for plants--like roses--which do not dieback to the earth level, and which sometimes require a screen as wellas a quilt, bracken, fir branches, a few pea-sticks, and matting orstraw are all handy helps. The old gentleman who ran out--without hisdressing-gown--to fling his own bed-quilt over some plants endangeredby an unexpected frost, came very near to having a fine show of bloomand not being there to see it; but, short of this excessive zeal, whenone's garden is a little one, and close to one's threshold, one maycatch Jack Frost on the surface of many bits of rough-and-readyfencing on very cold nights. 

_In drought, one good soaking with tepid water is worth sixsprinklings. _ Watering is very fatiguing, but it is unskilled labour, and one ought to be able to hire strong arms to do it at a small rate. But I never met the hired person yet who could be persuaded that itwas needful to do more than make the surface of the ground look as ifit had been raining. 

There is a "first principle" of which some gardeners are very fond, but in which I do not believe, that if you begin to water you must goon, and that too few waterings do harm. What I don't believe is thatthey do harm, nor did I ever meet with a gardener who complained of anodd shower, even if the skies did not follow it up. An odd sprinklingdoes next to no good, but an odd soaking may save the lives of yourplants. In very hot weather don't grudge a few waterings to yourpolyanthuses and primroses. If they are planted in open sunny borders, with no shade or hedge-mulching, they suffer greatly from drought. 

_Flowers, like human beings, are, to some extent, creatures of habit. _They get used to many things which they can't at all abide once in away. If your Little Garden (like mine) is part of a wanderingestablishment, here to-day and there to-morrow, you may get even yourroses into very good habits of moving good-humouredly, and makingthemselves quickly at home. If plants from the first are accustomed tobeing moved about, --every year, or two years, --they do not greatlyresent it. A real "old resident, " who has pushed his rootlets far andwide, and never tried any other soil or aspect, is very slow to settleelsewhere, even if he does not die of _nostalgia_ and nervous shock!In making cuttings, consider the habits and customs of the parentplant. If it has been grown in heat, the cuttings will require heat tostart them. And so on, as to dry soil or moist, &c. If somebody givesyou "a root" in hot weather, or a bad time for moving, when you havemade your hole pour water in very freely. Saturate the ground below, "puddle in" your plants with plenty more, and you will probably saveit, especially if you turn a pot or basket over it in the heat of theday. In warm weather plant in the evening, the new-comers then have around of the clock in dews and restfulness before the sun is fierceenough to make them flag. In cold weather move in the morning, and forthe same period they will be safe from possible frost. Little, ifany, watering is needed for late autumn plantings. 

_Those parts of a plant which are not accustomed to exposure are thosewhich suffer from it. _ You may garden bare-handed in a cold wind andnot be the worse for it, but, if both your arms were bared to theshoulders, the consequences would probably be very different. A bundleof rose-trees or shrubs will bear a good deal on their leaves andbranches, but for every moment you leave their roots exposed to dryingand chilling blasts they suffer. When a plant is out of the ground, protect its crown and its roots at once. If a plant is moved quickly, it is advantageous, of course, to take it up with as much earth aspossible, if the roots remain undisturbed in their little plat. Otherwise, earth is no better than any other protection; and insending plants by post, &c. (when soil weighs very heavily), it isbetter to wash every bit of soil out of the roots, and then thoroughlywrap them in moss, and outside that in hay or tow, or cotton-wool. Then, if the roots are comfortably spread in nice mould at the otherend of the journey, all should go well. 

I reserve a sneaking credulity about "lucky fingers. " Or rather, Ishould say, a belief that some people have a strange power (or tact)in dealing with the vegetable world, as others have in controlling andcoaxing animals. 

It is a vivid memory of my childhood that (amongst the box-edgedgardens of a family of eight), that of my eldest brother was almostinconvenienced by the luck of his fingers. "Survival of the fittest"(if hardiest does mean fittest!) kept the others within bounds; butwhat he begged, borrowed, and stole, survived, all of it, conglomeratearound the "double velvet" rose, which formed the centre-piece. Weused to say that when the top layer was pared off, a buried crop cameup. 

An old friend with lucky fingers visited my Little Garden this autumn. He wanders all over the world, and has no garden of his own exceptwindow-boxes in London, where he seems to grow what he pleases. He isconstantly doing kindnesses, and likes to do them his own way. Hechristened a border (out of which I had not then turned the builders'rubbish) Desolation Border, with more candour than compliment. He saidit wanted flowers, and he meant to sow some. I suggested that, sown atthat period of the summer, they would not flower this season. He saidthey would. (They did. ) None of my suggestions met with favour, so Ibecame gratefully passive, and watched the lucky fingers from adistance, fluttering small papers, and making mystic deposits here andthere, through the length and breadth of the garden. I only begged himto avoid my labels. The seeds he sowed ranged from three (rather old)seeds of bottle gourd to a packet of mixed Virginian stock. They allcame up. He said, "I shall put them in where I think it is desirable, and when they come up you'll see where they are. " I did. 

For some days after his departure, on other country visits, I receivedplants by post. Not in tins, or boxes, but in envelopes with little orno packing. In this way came sea lavender in full bloom, crimsonmonkey plant from the London window-box, and cuttings ofmesembryanthemum. They are all alive and thriving!

The bottle gourd and the annuals have had their day, and it is over;but in the most unexpected places there still rise, like ghosts, certain plants which completely puzzle me. [4] They have not blossomed, but they grow on in spite of frost. Some of them are nearly as tall asmyself. They almost alarm me when I am dividing violas, and triflingwith alpines. They stand over me (without sticks) and seem to say, "Weare up, you see where we are! We shall grow as long as we think itdesirable. "

Farewell for the present, Little Friend, Yours, &c. 

[Footnote 4: When fully grown these plants proved to be theTree-Mallow, _Lavatera arborea_; the seeds were gathered fromspecimens on the shores of the Mediterranean. ]

LETTER IV. 

 "When Candlemas Day is come and gone, The snow lies on a hot stone. "--_Old Saw_. 

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, Among all the changes and chances of human life which go to make upfiction as well as fact, there is one change which has never chancedto any man; and yet the idea has been found so fascinating by all menthat it appears in the literature of every country. Most other fanciedtransformations are recorded as facts somewhere in the history of ourrace. Poor men have become rich, the beggar has sat among princes, thesick have been made whole, the dead have been raised, the neglectedman has awoke to find himself famous, rough and kindly beasts havebeen charmed by lovely ladies into very passable Princes, and it wouldbe hard to say that the ugly have not seen themselves beautiful in themirror of friendly eyes; but the old have never become young. Theelixir of youth has intoxicated the imagination of many, but no dropof it has ever passed human lips. 

If we ever do just taste anything of the vital, hopeful rapture, theelastic delight of the old man of a fairy tale, who leaves his cares, his crutches, and his chimney-corner, to go forth again young amongstthe young, --it is when the winter is ended and the spring is come. Some people may feel this rising of the sap of life within them morethan others, but there are probably very few persons whom the firstmild airs and bursting buds and pushing flower-crowns do not slightlyintoxicate with a sort of triumphant pleasure. 

What then, dear little friend, must be the February feelings of theowner of a Little Garden? Knowing, as we do, every plant and itsplace, --having taken just pride in its summer bloom, --having preservedthis by cares and trimmings and proppings to a picturesque and floridautumn, though wild-flowers have long been shrivelled andshapeless, --having tidied it up and put a little something comfortinground it when bloom and outline were absolutely no more: what must wefeel when we first detect the ruddy young shoots of our favouritepæonies, or perceive that the brown old hepaticas have become greenand young again and are full of flower-buds?

The process of strolling, with bent back and peering eyes, by the sideof the still frosty borders is so deeply interesting, and a verylittle sunshine on a broad band of crocuses has such a summer-likeeffect, that one is apt to forget that it is one of the cheapest waysof catching cold. The last days of the gardening year not unfrequentlylead from the flower-bed to the sick-bed. But though there is forsusceptible folk a noxious influence in the decaying vegetation ofautumn, from which spring is free, there is bitter treachery in many aspring wind, and the damp of the ground seems to reek with the exudingchill of all the frosts that have bound it in mid-winter. 

I often wonder that, for some exigencies of weather, the outdoorred-flannel knickerbockers which one wears in Canada are not more inuse here. The very small children have all their clothes stuffed intothem, and tumble safely about in the snow like little Dutchmen. Olderwearers of petticoats cram all in except the outermost skirt. It is avery simple garment made of three pieces, --two (straight) legs and alarge square. The square is folded like a kerchief, and the leg piecesattached to the two sloping sides. A broad elastic and small openingson each side and at the top enable these very baggy knickerbockers tobe easily pulled on for going out (where they effectually exclude coldexhalations from snow or damp ground), and pulled off on coming in. 

Short of such coddling as this, I strongly urge fleecy cork socksinside your garden boots; and I may add that if you've never triedthem, you can have no idea of the warmth and comfort of a pair ofboy's common yellow-leather leggings, but the buttons will requiresome adjusting. 

Of course, very robust gardeners are independent of these troublesomeconsiderations; but the gardening members of a family, whether youngor old, are very often not those vigorous people who can enjoy theirfresh air at unlimited tennis or a real good stretching walk over thehills. They are oftener those weaker vessels who have to be contentwith strolls, and drives, and sketching, and "pottering about thegarden. "

Now, pottering about the garden in spring and autumn has many risksfor feeble vitalities, and yet these are just the seasons wheneverything requires doing, and there is a good hour's work in everyyard of a pet border any day. So _verbum sap_. One has to "pay withone's person" for most of one's pleasures, if one is delicate; but itis possible to do a great deal of equinoctial grubbing with safety andeven benefit, if one is very warmly protected, especially about thefeet and legs. These details are very tedious for young people, butnot so tedious as being kept indoors by a cold. 

And not only must delicate gardeners be cosseted with littleadvantages at these uncertain seasons, the less robust of the flowersgain equally by timely care. Jack Frost comes and goes, and leavesmany plants (especially those planted the previous autumn) half jumpedout of the ground. Look out for this, and tread them firmly in again. A shovel-full of cinder-siftings is a most timely attention round theyoung shoots of such as are poking up their noses a little too early, and seem likely to get them frost-bitten. Most alpines and low-growingstuff will bear light rolling after the frost has unsettled them. Thisis done in large gardens, but in a Little Garden they can be attendedto individually. Give a little protection to what is too forward ingrowth, or badly placed, or of doubtful hardihood, or newly planted. Roses and hardy perennials can be planted in open weather. 

But you will; not really be very busy outside till March, and we arenot concerning ourselves with what has to be done "in heat, " where agood deal is going on. 

Still, in mild climates or seasons (and one must always remember howgreatly the British Isles vary in parts, as to climate), the idea ofseedlings and cuttings will begin to stir our souls, when February"fills dike, " if it is "with black and not with white, " _i. E. _ withrain and not snow. So I will just say that for a Little Garden, and amixed garden, demanding patches, not scores of things, you can raise awonderfully sufficient number of half-hardy things in an ordinaryroom, with one or two bell-glasses to give the moist atmosphere inwhich sitting-rooms are wanting. A common tumbler will cover a dozen"seedlings, " and there you have two nice little clumps of half-a-dozenplants each, when they are put out. (And mind you leave them space tospread. ) A lot of little cuttings can be rooted in wet sand. Hard-wooded cuttings may grow along slowly in cool places; littlejuicy soft ones need warmth, damp, and quick pushing forward. The verytips of fuchsias grow very easily struck early in wet sand, and willflower the same year. Kind friends will give you these, and if theywill also give you "tips" of white, yellow, and blue Marguerites (thislast is _Agathea celestis_), these strike as easily as chrysanthemums, and are delightful afterwards to cut from. They are not very tender, though not quite hardy. 

For the few pots and pans and boxes of cuttings and seedlings whichyou require, it is well worth while to get a small stock of goodcompost from a nursery gardener; leaf mould, peat, and sand, whetherfor seedlings or cuttings. Always _sink_ your pot in a secondcovering. Either have your pots sunk in a box of sand, which you cankeep damp, or have small pots sunk in larger ones. A _great-coat_ toprevent evaporation, in some shape, is invaluable. 

Yours, &c. , J. H. E. 

GARDEN-LORE. 

 Every child who has gardening tools, Should learn by heart these gardening rules. 

 He who owns a gardening spade, Should be able to dig the depth of its blade. 

 He who owns a gardening hoe, Must be sure how he means his strokes to go. 

 But he who owns a gardening fork, May make it do all the other tools' work. 

 Though to shift, or to pot, or annex what you can, A trowel's the tool for child, woman, or man. 

 'Twas a bird that sits in the medlar-tree, Who sang these gardening saws to me. 

THE LITTLE GARDENER'S ALPHABET OF PROVERBS. 

AUTUMN-SOWN annuals flower soonest and strongest. 

 What you sow in the spring, sow often and thin. 

BULBS bought early are best chosen. 

 If you wish your tulips to wake up gay, They must all be in bed by Lord Mayor's Day. 

 "Cut my leaves this year, and you won't cut my flowers next year, " said the Daffodil to Tabitha Tidy. 

CUT a rose for your neighbour, and it will tell two buds to blossomfor you. 

DON'T let me forget to pray for travellers when I thank Heaven I'mcontent to stay in my own garden. It is furnished from the ends of theearth. 

ENOUGH comes out of anybody's old garden in autumn, to stock a new onefor somebody else. But you want sympathy on one side and sense on theother, and they are rarer than most perennials. 

FLOWERS are like gentlemen--"Best everywhere. "[5]

[Footnote 5: "Clowns are best in their own company, but gentlemen arebest everywhere. "--_Old Proverb. _]

GIVE Mother Earth plenty of food, and she'll give you plenty offlowers. 

HE who can keep what he gets, and multiply what he has got, shouldalways buy the best kinds; and he who can do neither should buy none. 

IF nothing else accounts for it, ten to one there's a worm in the pot. 

JOBBING gardeners are sometimes neat, and if they leave their rubbishbehind them, the hepaticas may turn up again. 

KNOWN sorts before new sorts, if your list has limits. 

LEAVE a bit behind you--for conscience's sake--if it's only_Polypodium Vulgaris_. 

MISCHIEF shows in the leaves, but lies at the root. 

NORTH borders are warmest in winter. 

OLD women's window-plants have guardian angels. 

PUSSY cats have nine lives and some pot-plants have more; but both dodie of neglect. 

QUAINT, gay, sweet, and good for nosegays, is good enough for mygarden. 

RUBBISH is rubbish when it lies about--compost when it's all of aheap--and food for flowers when it's dug in. 

SOW thick, and you'll have to thin; but sow peas as thick as youplease. 

TREE-LEAVES in the garden, and tea-leaves in the parlour, are good formulching. 

"USEFUL if ugly, " as the toad said to the lily when he ate the grubs. 

VERY little will keep Jack Frost out--_before he gets in_. 

WATER your rose with a slop-pail when it's in bud, and you'll be askedthe name of it when it's in flower. 

XERANTHEMUM, Rhodanthe, Helichrysum, white yellow, purple, and red. 

 Grow us, cut us, tie us, and hang us with drooping head. Good Christians all, find a nook for us, for we bloom for the Church and the Dead. 

YOU may find more heart's-ease in your garden than grows in thepansy-bed. 

ZINNIA elegans flore-pleno is a showy annual, and there's a colouredpicture in the catalogue; but--like many other portraits--it's afavourable likeness. 

SUNFLOWERS AND A RUSHLIGHT. 

 _Sunflowers and a Rushlight originally appeared in "Aunt Judy's Magazine, " November 1882. It is now re-published for the first time. _

CHAPTER I. 

 "A MAN NAMED SOLOMON"--JAEL AND THE CHINA POODLE--JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY--NAIL-SPOTS--FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS--A FAMILY DOCTOR--THE BOOKS IN THE ATTIC--A PUZZLING TALE--"A JOURNEY TO GO. "

Doctor Brown is our doctor. He lives in our village, at the top of thehill. 

When we were quite little, and had scarlet-fever, and measles, andthose things, Dr. Brown used to be very kind to us, and dress hisfirst finger up in his pocket-handkerchief with a knot for the turban, and rings on his thumb and middle finger, and do--"At the top of ahill lived a man named Solomon, " in a hollow voice, which frightenedme rather. 

And then he used to say--"Wise man, Solomon! He lived at the top of ahill, " and laugh till his face got redder than usual, and his eyesfilled with laughter-tears, and twinkled in the nice way they do, andI was not frightened any more. 

Dr. Brown left off being our doctor once. That was when he andGrandmamma quarrelled. But they made it up again. 

It was when I was so unhappy--I tried to help it, but I really couldnot--about my poor dear white china poodle (Jael broke him when shewas dusting, and then she swept up his tail, though I have so beggedher to keep the bits when she cleans our room, and breaks things; andnow he never never can be mended, all the days of my life):--it waswhen I was crying about him, and Grandmamma told Dr. Brown how silly Iwas, to make me feel ashamed, that he said--"There are some temperswhich, if they haven't enough people to love, will love things. "

Margery says he did not say _tempers_ but _temperaments_. I know itbegan with temper, because it reminded me of Jael, who said "themtears is all temper, Miss Grace, " which was very hard, because sheknew--she knew quite well--it was about my poodle; and thoughaccidents will happen, she need not have swept up his tail. 

Margery is sure to be right. She always it. Besides, we looked it outin Johnson's Dictionary, which we are rather food of, though it isvery heavy to lift. We like the bits out of books, in small print; butI could not understand the bits to the word _temperament_, and I donot think Margery could either, though she can understand much morethan I can. 

There is a very odd bit to the word _temperamental_, and it is signed_Brown_; but we do not know if that means our Dr. Brown. This is the bit:"That _temperamental_ dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, maybe collected from spots in our nails, we concede. "--_Brown_. 

We could not understand it, so we lifted down the other volume (one isjust as heavy as the other), and looked out "Dignotion, " and it means"distinction, distinguishing mark, " and then there is the same bitover again, but at the end is "_Brown's Vulgar Errors_. " And we didnot like to ask Dr. Brown if they were his vulgar errors, for fear heshould think us rude. I thought we might perhaps ask him if they werehis errors, and leave out _vulgar_, which is rather a rude word, butMargery thought it better not, and she is sure to be right. She alwaysis. 

But we should have liked to ask Dr. Brown about it, if it had not beenrude, because we think a good deal of spots on our nails. All we knowabout them is that you begin at your thumb, and count on to yourlittle finger, in this way, "A Gift, a Beau, A Friend, a Foe, A Journey to go. "

I like having a Beau, or a Friend; Margery likes a Gift, or a Journeyto go. We neither of us like having Foes. 

And it shows that it does come true, because Margery had a white spotin the middle of her left little finger-nail, just when our father'sold friend wrote to Grandmamma, for one of us to go and pay him avisit; and Margery went, because she was the elder of the two. 

I do not know how I bore parting with her, except with hoping that shewould enjoy herself, for she always had wanted so very much to have ajourney to go. But if she had been at home, so that I could have takenher advice, I do not think I should have been so silly about theSunflowers and the Rushlight. 

She says--"You'd have put on your slippers, and had a blanket roundyou at least. But, oh, my dear Grace, you always are so rash!"

I did not know I was. I thought rash people were brave; and if I hadbeen brave, the Rushlight would never have come out of the roof. StillMargery is sure to be right. I know I am very foolish and lonelywithout her. 

There are only two of us. Our father, and our mother, and our brother, all died of fever, nearly five years ago. We shall never see themagain till we go to Paradise, and that is one reason why we wish totry to be good and never to be naughty, so that we may be sure to seethem again. 

I remember them a little. I remember being frightened by sitting sohigh up on my father's shoulder, and then feeling so safe when I gotinto my mother's lap; and I remember Robin's curls, and his taking mywoolly ball from me. I remember our black frocks coming in thehair-trunk with brass nails to the seaside, where Margery and I werewith our nurse, and her telling the landlady that our father andmother and brother were all laid in one grave. And I remember goinghome, and seeing the stone flags up in the yard, and a deep dark holenear the pump, and thinking that was the grave; and how Margery foundme stark with fright, and knew better, and told me that the grave wasin the churchyard, and that this hole was only where workmen had beendigging for drains. 

And then never seeing those three, day after day, and having to dowithout them ever since!

But Margery remembers a good deal more (she is three years older thanI am). She remembers things people said, and the funeral sermon, andthe books being moved into the attic, and she remembers Grandmamma'squarrel with Dr. Brown. 

She says she was sitting behind the parlour curtains with Mrs. Trimmer's Roman History, and Grandmamma was sitting, looking verygrave in her new black dress, with a pocket-handkerchief and book inher lap, and sherry and sponge biscuits on a tray on the piano, forvisitors of condolence, when Dr. Brown came in, looking very gravetoo, and took off one of his black gloves and shook hands. Then hetook off the other, and put them both into his hat, and had a glass ofsherry and a sponge biscuit, so Margery knew that he was a visitor ofcondolence. 

Then he and Grandmamma talked a long time. Margery does not know whatabout, for she was reading Mrs. Trimmer; but she thinks they weregetting rather cross with each other. Then they got up, and Dr. Brownlooked into his hat, and took out his gloves, and Grandmamma wiped hereyes with her pocket-handkerchief, and said, "I hope I know how tosubmit, but it has been a heavy judgment, Dr. Brown. "

And Margery was just beginning to cry too, when Dr. Brown said, "Avery heavy judgment indeed, Madam, for letting the cesspool leak intothe well;" and it puzzled her so much that she stopped. 

Then Grandmamma was very angry, and Dr. Brown was angry too, and thenGrandmamma said, "I don't know another respectable practitioner, Dr. Brown, who would have said what you have said this morning. "

And Dr. Brown brushed his hat the wrong way with his coat-sleeve, andsaid, "Too true, madam! We are not a body of reformers, with all ouropportunities we're as bigoted as most priesthoods, but we count fewermissionary martyrs. The sins, the negligences, and the ignorances ofevery age have gone on much the same as far as we have been concerned, though very few people keep family chaplains, and most folk have afamily doctor. "

Then Grandmamma got very stiff, Margery says (she always is ratherstiff), and said, "I am sorry, Dr. Brown, to hear you speak so ill ofthe members of an honourable profession, to which you yourselfbelong. "

And Dr. Brown found out that he had brushed his hat the wrong way, andhe brushed it right, and said, "Not at all, Madam, not at all! I thinkwe're a very decent set, for men with large public responsibilities, almost entirely shielded from the wholesome light of public criticism, who handle more lives than most Commanders, and are not called upon topublish our disasters or make returns of our losses. But don't expecttoo much of us! I say we are not reformers. They rise up amongst usnow and again; but we don't encourage them, we don't encourage them. We are a privileged caste of medicine men, whose 'mysteries' areprotected by the faith of those to whom we minister, a faithfortified by ignorance and fear. I wish you good-morning, Madam. "

Margery has often repeated this to me. We call it "Dr. Brown'sSpeeches. " She is very fond of spouting speeches, much longer onesthan Dr. Brown's. She learns them by heart out of history books, andthen dresses up and spouts them to me in our attic. 

Margery says she did not understand at the time what they werequarrelling about; and when, afterwards, she asked Grandmamma what acesspool was, Grandmamma was cross with her too, and said it was avery coarse and vulgar word, and that Dr. Brown was a very coarse andvulgar person. We've looked it out since in Johnson's Dictionary, forwe thought it might be one of Dr. Brown's vulgar errors, but it is notthere. 

Margery reads a great deal of history; she likes it; she likes all thesensible books in the attic, and I like the rest, particularly poetryand fairy tales. 

The books are Mother's books, they belonged to her father. She likedhaving them all in the parlour, "littering the whole place, " Jaelsays; but Grandmamma has moved them to the attic now, all but a volumeof Sermons for Sunday, and the Oriental Annual, to amuse visitors ifthey are left alone. Only she says you never ought to leave yourvisitors alone. 

Jael is very glad the books were taken to the attic, because "theygather dust worse than chimney ornaments;" so she says. 

Margery and I are very glad too, for we are sent to play in the attic, and then we read as much as ever we like; and we move our pet books toour own corner and pretend they are our very own. We have very cosycorners; we pile up some of the big books for seats, and then make abigger pile in front of us for tables, and there we sit. 

Once Dr. Brown found us. We had got whooping cough, and he had come tosee if we were better; and he is very big, and he tramped so heavilyon the stairs I did really think he was a burglar; and Margery was alittle frightened too, so we were very glad to see him; and when hesaw us reading at our tables, he said, "So this is the Attic salt yeseason life with, is it?" And then he laughed just as he always does. 

There is one story in my favourite Fairy Book which Margery likes too;it is called "A Puzzling Tale. " I read it to Margery when we weresitting in our tree seat in the garden, and I put my hand over theanswer to the puzzle, and she could not guess; and if Margery couldnot guess, I do not think any one else could. 

This is the tale:--"Three women were once changed into flowers, andgrew in a field; but one was permitted to go home at night. Once, when day was dawning, and she was about to return to her companions inthe field and become a flower again, she said to her husband, 'In themorning come to the field and pick me off my stalk, then I shall bereleased, and able to live at home for the future. ' So the husbandwent to the field as he was told, and picked his wife and took herhome. 

"Now how did he know his wife's flower from the other two, for all thethree flowers were alike?"

(That is the puzzle. This is the answer:)

"_He knew his wife because there was no dew upon her flower. _"

There is a very nice picture of the three flowers standing stiff andupright, with leaves held out like hands, and large round flowerfaces, all three exactly alike. I have looked at them again and again, but I never could see any difference; for you can't see the dew on theones who had been out all night, and so you can't tell which was theone who was allowed to go home. But I think it was partly being sofond of those round flower faces in the Puzzling Tale, that made meget so very very fond of Sunflowers. 

We have splendid Sunflowers in our garden, so tall, and with suchlarge round faces!

The Sunflowers were in bloom when Margery went away. She bade themgood-bye, and kissed her hands to them as well as to me. She wentaway in a cab, with her things in the hair trunk with brass nails onthe top. She waved her hand to me as long as ever I could see her, andshe wagged one finger particularly. I knew which finger it was, andwhat she meant. It was the little finger with that dignotion on thenail, which showed that she had a journey to go. 

CHAPTER II. 

 ON THE WING--SUNFLOWER SAINTS--DEW-DRENCHED--A BAD NIGHT--A BAD HEADACHE--REGULAR REGIMEN IN GRANDMAMMA'S YOUNG DAYS--TIRED NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER--A SINFUL WASTE OF CANDLE-GREASE. 

The Sunflowers were in bloom when Margery went away; and the swallowswere on the wing. The garden was full of them all the morning, andwhen she had gone, they went too. They had been restless for dayspast, so I dare say they had dignotions of their own, that they had ajourney to go as well as Margery. 

But when they were gone, and she was gone, the garden felt verylonely. The Sunflowers stretched out their round faces just as if theywere looking to see if the cab was coming back; and there was a robin, which kept hopping on and off the pump and peeping about with hiseyes, as if he could not imagine what had become of all the swallows. 

And Margery's black cat came and mewed to me, and rubbed itselfagainst my pinafore, and walked up and down with me till I went in andgot the "Ancient Mariner" and my little chair, and came back and readto the Sunflowers. 

Sunflowers are quite as good as dolls to play with. Margery and Ithink them better in some ways. You can't move them about unless youpick them; but then they will stand of themselves, which dolls willnot. You can give them names just as well, and you can teach themlessons just as well. They will grow, which dolls won't; and theyreally live and die, which dolls don't. In fact, for tallness, theyare rather like grown-up people. Then more come out, which is nice;and you see the little Sunflowers growing into big ones, which youcan't see with dolls. 

We can play a Sunday game with the Sunflowers. We do not have any ofour toys on Sunday, except in winter, when we have Noah's Ark. In thesummer we may go in the garden between the services, and we alwayswalk up and down together and play with the Sunflowers. 

The Sunday Sunflower game is calling them after the black-lettersaints in the Kalendar, and reading about them in a very old book--abig one with a black leather binding--in the attic, called _Lives ofthe Saints_. I read, and then I tell it to Margery as we walk up anddown, and say--"This is St. Prisca, this is St. Fabian, this is St. Agnes, this is St. Agatha, and this is St. Valentine"--and so on. 

What made us first think of having them for Saints on Sunday, was thatthe yellow does sometimes look so very like a glory round their faces. We choose by turns which name to give to each, but if there is a verybig one with a lot of yellow flaming out, we always called him St. George of England, because there is a very old figure of St. Georgeslaying the Dragon, in a painted window in our Church; and St. George's hair is yellow, and standing out all round; and when the sunshines through the window, so that you can't see his nose and hismouth at all clearly, he looks quite wonderfully like a Sunflower. Then on week-days, the game I like best is pretending that they arewomen changed into flowers. 

They feel so grown up with being so tall, that they are much more likegrown-up people turned into flowers than like children. I pretend mydoll is my child when I play with her; but I don't think I couldpretend a Sunflower was my child; and sometimes if Margery leaves mealone with rather big Sunflowers, when it is getting dusk, and I lookup at them, and they stare at me with their big faces in the twilight, I get so frightened for fear they should have got leave to go home atnight, _and be just turning_, that I run indoors as hard as ever Ican. 

Two or three times I have got up early and gone out to see if any oneof them had no dew; but they have always been drenched, every onethem. Dew, thick over their brown faces, and rolling like tears downtheir yellow glories. I am quite sure that I have never seen aSunflower yet that had had leave to go home at night, and Margery saysthe same. And she is certain to know. 

I had a very bad night, the night after Margery went away. I was soterribly frightened with being alone in the dark. I know it was verysilly, but it was most miserable. I was afraid to go and wake Jael, and I was more afraid of going to Grandmamma, and I was most of allafraid of staying where I was. It seemed to be years and years beforethe light began to come a little, and the noises left off creaking, and dropping, and cracking, and moving about. 

Next day I had a very bad headache. Jael does not like me when I haveheadaches, because I give trouble, and have to have hot water andmustard for my feet at odd times. Jael does not mind bringing up hotwater at night; but she says she can't abide folk wanting things atodd times. So she does not like me when I have headaches; and when Ihave headaches, I do not much like her. She treads so very heavily, it shakes the floor just as ogres in ogre stories shake the groundwhen they go out kidnapping; and then the pain jumps in my head till Iget frightened, and wonder what happens to people when the pain getsso bad that they cannot bear it any longer. 

That morning, I thought I never should have got dressed; stooping andfastening things do make you so very bad. I was very late, andGrandmamma was beginning to scold me, but when she saw I had got aheadache she didn't--she only said I looked like a washed-outpocket-handkerchief; and when I could not eat any breakfast, she saidI must have a dose of rhubarb and magnesia, and as she had not got anyrhubarb left, she sent Jael up to Dr. Brown's to get some. 

I did not like having to take rhubarb and magnesia; but I was veryglad to get rid of Jael for a bit, though I knew she would hate me forhaving had to take a message at an odd time. It was her shaking theroom when she brought in the urn, and knocking the tongs into thefender with her dress as she went by, that had made me not able to eatany breakfast. 

Just as she was starting, Grandmamma beckoned to her to come back, andtold her to call at the barber's, and tell him to come up in theafternoon to "thin" my hair. 

My hair is very thick. I brush as much out as I can; but I think itonly gets thicker and thicker. Grandmamma says she believes that iswhat gives me so many headaches, and she says it is no use cutting itshorter, for it always is kept cut short; the only way is to thin it, that is, cutting lumps out here and there down to the roots. Thinningdoes make less of it; but when it grows again it is very difficult tokeep tidy, which makes Jael say she "never see such a head, it's allodds and ends, " and sometimes she adds--"inside _and_ out. " Margerycan imitate Jael exactly. 

When Jael came back, she said Dr. Brown would step down and see mehimself. So he came. 

Then he felt my pulse and asked me what sort of a night I had had, andI was obliged to tell him, and Grandmamma was very much vexed, andmade me tell the whole truth, and she said I did not deserve any pityfor my headaches when I brought them on myself, which is true. 

I think it was being vexed with me that made her vexed with Dr. Brown, when he said rhubarb and magnesia would not do me any good. She saidshe liked a regular system with the health of young people; and whenshe and her six sisters were girls they were physicked with perfectregularity; they were bled in the spring, and the fall of the leaf;and had their hair thinned and their teeth taken out, once a quarter, by the advice of their excellent friend and local practitioner, whoafterwards removed to London, and became very distinguished, and hadhis portrait painted in oils for one of the learned societies. AndGrandmamma said she had been spared to survive all her family, and hadnever had a headache in her life. 

Though my head was so bad, I listened as hard as I could to hear whatDr. Brown would say. For I thought--"if he makes one of his speeches, they will quarrel, and he will leave off being our doctor again. "

But he didn't, he only said--"Well, well, madam, I'll send the childsome medicine. Let her go and lie down at once, with a hot bottle toher feet, and as many pillows as she wants under her head; and don'tlet a sound reach her for the next three or four hours. When shewakes, give her a basin of bread-and-milk. "

So he went away, and presently he came back himself with the medicine. It tasted very nice, and he was very kind; only he made Jael so crosswith saying she had not put boiling water in the hot bottle, andsending it down again; and then making her fetch more pillows out ofthe spare bedroom (Jael does not like odd things any more than oddtimes). But I never had such a hot bottle or such a comfortableheadache before, and he pulled the blind down, and I went to sleep. Atfirst I dreamt a little of the pain, and then I forgot it, and thenslept like a top, for hours and hours. 

When I awoke I found a basin of bread-and-milk, with a plate over itto keep it warm, on the rush-bottomed chair by the bed. It hadn't keptit very warm. It made me think of the suppers of the Three Bears intheir three basins, and I dare say theirs were rather cold too. Perhaps their Jael boiled their bread-and-milk at her own time, whether they were ready for it or not. 

But I think mine must have been like the Little Bear's supper, for Iate it all up. 

My head was much better, so I went up to our attic, and got out theFairy Book, that I might not think too much about Margery, and itopened of itself at the Puzzling Tale. I was just beginning to readit, when I heard a noise under the rafters, in one of those low sortof cupboard places that run all round the attic, where spare boxes andold things are kept, and where Margery and I sometimes play at Voyagesof Discovery. 

I thought Margery's black cat must be shut up there, but when I wentto look, there was another crash, and then the door burst open, andout came Jael, with her cap so crushed that I could not help laughing. 

I was glad to see her, for my head was well, so I liked her again, anddid not mind her being ogre-footed, and I wanted to know what she wasdoing; but Jael had not got to like me again, and she spoke verycrossly, and said it was more trouble of my giving, and that Dr. Brownhad said that I was to have a light in my bedroom till Miss Margerycame back--"if ever there was a sinful waste of candle-grease!" andthat it wasn't likely the Mistress was going to throw away money onbox night-lights; and she had sent the boy to the shop forhalf-a-dozen farthing rushlights--if they kept them, and if not, forhalf-a-pound of "sixteen" dips, and had sent her to the attic to findthe old Rushlight-tin. 

"What's it like, Jael?"

"It's like a Rushlight-tin, to be sure, " said Jael "And it's not beenused since your Pa and Ma's last illness. So it's safe to be thickwith dust, and a pretty job it is for me to have to do, losing the pinout of my cap, and tearing my apron on one of them old boxes, all tofind a dirty old Rushlight, just because of _your_ whims and fancies, Miss Grace!"

"Jael, I am so sorry for your cap and apron. I will go in and find theRushlight for you. Tell me, is it painted black, with a lot of roundholes in the sides, and a little door, and a place like a candlestickin the middle? If it is, I know where it is. "

I knew quite well. It was behind a very old portmanteau, and a tin boxwith a wig and moths in it, and the bottom part of the shower-bath, just at the corner, which Margery and I call Bass's Straits. So I madea Voyage of Discovery, and brought it out, "thick with dust, " as Jaelhad said. 

And Jael took it, and went away very cross and very ogre-footed, with hercap still awry; and as she stumped down the attic-stairs, and keptclattering the Rushlight against the rails, I could hear her muttering--"Asinful waste of candle-grease--whims and fancies--scandilus!"

CHAPTER III. 

 PAIN PAST--A REPRIEVE FROM THE BARBER--SUNFLOWER SLEEP--LITTLE MICHAELMAS GOOSE--SNUFFING A RUSHLIGHT--A PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES--GRANDMAMMA WITH A WATCHMAN'S RATTLE. 

Jael's ogre-footsteps had hardly ceased to resound from the woodenstairs, when these shook again to the tread of Dr. Brown. 

He said--"How are you?" and I said--"Very happy, thank you, " which wastrue. For the only nice thing about dreadful pain is that, when it isgone, you feel for a little bit as if you could cry with joy at havingnothing to bear. 

Then I thanked him for asking Grandmamma to let me have the Rushlighttill Margery came home; and he said I ought to be very much obliged tohim, for he had begged me off the barber too. So I asked him if hethought my hair gave me headaches, and he felt it, and said--"No!"which I was very glad of. He said he thought it was more what I grewinside, than what I grew outside my head that did it, and that I wasnot to puzzle too much over books. 

I was afraid he meant the Puzzling Tale, so I told him it was veryshort, and the answer was given; so he said he should like to hearit--and I read it to him. He liked it very much, and he liked thepicture; and I told him we thought they were Sunflowers, only that theglory leaves were folded in so oddly, and we did not know why. And hesaid--"Why, because they're asleep, to be sure. Don't you know thatflowers sleep as soundly as you do? _They_ don't lie awake in thedark!"

And then he shook with laughing, till he shook the red into his face, and the tears into his eyes, as he always does. 

Dr. Brown must know a great deal about flowers, much more than Ithought he did; I told him so, and he said, "Didn't think I looked aslike a flower sprite as yourself, eh? 'Pon my word, I don't think I'munlike one of your favourites. Tall, ye know, big beaming face, eh?There are people more unlike a Sunflower than Dr. Brown! Ha! ha! ha!"

He laughed, he always does; but he told me quite delightful thingsabout flowers: how they sleep, and breathe, and eat, and drink, andcatch cold in draughts, and turn faint in the sun, and sometimes areall the better for a change ("like Miss Margery, " so he said), andsometimes are home-sick and won't settle ("which I've a notion mightbe one of your follies, Miss Grace"), and turn pale and sickly in darkcorners or stuffy rooms. But he never knew one that went home atnight. 

Except for being too big for our chairs and tables, and for goingvoyages of discovery, I do think Dr. Brown would make a very niceperson to play with; he seems to believe in fancy things, and he knowsso much, and is so good-natured. He asked me what flower I thoughtJael was like; and when I told him Margery could imitate her exactly, he said he must see that some day. I dared not tell him Margery can dohim too, making his speeches in the shovel hat we found in an old oldhat-box near Bass's Straits, and a pair of old black gloves ofGrandmamma's. 

When he went away he patted my head, and said Margery and I must cometo tea with him some day, and he would show us wonderful things in hismicroscope, and if we were very good, a plant that eats meat. 

"But most flowers thrive by 'eating the air, ' as the Irish say, andyou're one of 'em, Miss Grace. Do ye hear? You're not to bury yourselfin this attic in the holidays. Run out in the garden, and play withyour friends the Sunflowers, and remember what I've told you abouttheir going to sleep and setting you a good example. It's as true asGospel, and there's many a rough old gardener besides Dr. Brown willtell you that flowers gathered in the morning last longer than thosegathered in the evening, because those are fresh after a night's nap, and these are tired and want to rest, and not to be taken intoparlours, and kept awake with candles. Good-bye, little MichaelmasGoose!" And away he went, clomping down-stairs, but not a bit likeJael. 

When bed-time came I was a good deal tired; but after I got into bed Ikept my candle alight for a time, hoping Jael would bring theRushlight and put it on the floor near Margery's bed, as I had askedher to do. But after a while I had to put out my candle, forGrandmamma is rather particular about it, and then I was so sleepy Ifell asleep. I was awakened by a noise and a sort of flashing, and Ithought it was thunder and lightning, but it was only Jael; she hadcome stumping in, and was flashing the Rushlight about before my eyesto see if I was asleep, and when she saw I was, she wanted to take itaway again, but I begged and prayed, and then I said Grandmamma hadpromised, and she always keeps her promises, and I should go and askher. So at last Jael set it down by Margery's bed, and went away moreogre-footed than ever, grumbling and growling about the waste ofcandle-grease. But I had got the Rushlight, so I didn't mind; I onlyhugged my knees, and laughed, and lay down again. And when I heardJael go stumping up-stairs, I knew that she had waited till her ownbed-time to bring the Rushlight, and that was why it was late. And Ithought to-morrow I would tell Grandmamma, for she promised, and shealways performs. She does not spoil us, we know, but she is alwaysfair. Jael isn't, always. 

A Rushlight is a very queer thing. It looked so grim as it stood byMargery's bed, in a little round of light; rather like a ruined castlein the middle of a lake in the moonshine. A castle with one big door, and a lot of round windows with the light coming through. They madebig spots and patches of light all about the room. I could not shut myeyes for watching them, for they were not all the same shape, and theykept changing and moving; at last they got so faint, I was afraid theRushlight was going out, so I jumped up and went to see, and I foundthere was a very big thief in the candle, so I got the snuffers out ofmy candlestick, and snuffed it, and got into bed again; and now therewere beautiful big moons of light all over Margery's bed-valance. 

Thinking of the thief in the Rushlight made me think of a thief in acastle, and then of thieves getting into our house, and that if onegot in at my window I could do nothing except scream for help, because Grandmamma keeps the Watchman's Rattle under her own pillow, and locks her bedroom door. And then I looked at my window, and saw abit of light, and it made me quite cold, for I thought it was aburglar's lantern, till I saw it was the moon. 

Then I knew how silly I was, and I determined that I would not be sucha coward. I determined I would not think of burglars, nor ghosts, noreven Margery. 

Margery and I are quite sure that we can think of things, and preventourselves thinking of things, by trying very hard. But it is ratherdifficult. 

I tried, and I did. I thought I would think of flowers, and of Dr. Brown, for he is very cheerful to think of. So I thought ofSunflowers, and how they eat the air, and go to sleep at night, andperhaps look like the three women in the Fairy Tale. And I thought Iwould always pick flowers in the morning now, and never at night, whenthey want to go to sleep and not to be woke up in a parlour withcandles. 

And then I wondered: Would they wake with candles if they had begun togo to sleep? Would they wake with a jump, as I did, if Jael flashedthe Rushlight in their faces? Would the moon wake them? Were theyawake then, that very minute, like me, or asleep, as I was before Jaelcame in? Did they look like the picture in the Fairy Book, with theirglory leaves folded over their faces? If I took a candle now, and heldit before St. George of England, looking like that, would he wake witha start, and spread his glory leaves out all round, and stare at me, broad-wide awake?

Then I thought how often I had gone out early, and wet my petticoats, to see if any of them had no dew on their faces, and that I had nevergone out at night to see if they looked like the women in the FairyTale; and I wondered why I never had, and I supposed it was because Iwas silly, and perhaps afraid of going out in the dark. 

Then I remembered that it wasn't dark. There was a moon: besides myhaving a Rushlight. 

Then I wondered if I was very very silly, and why Dr. Brown had calledme a Michaelmas Goose. But I remembered that it must be becauseto-morrow, was the 29th of September. 

Then the stairs clock struck eleven. 

I counted all the strokes, and then I saw that the Rushlight wasgetting dim again, so I got up and snuffed it, and all the moons cameout as bright as ever; but I did not feel in the least sleepy. 

I did not feel frightened any more. I only wished I knew for certainwhat Sunflowers look like when they are asleep, and whether you canwake them up with candles. And I went on wondering, and watching themoons. 

Then the stairs clock struck a quarter-past eleven, and Ithought--"Oh, Grace! If you were not such a coward, if you had jumpedup when the clock struck eleven, and slipped down the back-stairs, with the Rushlight in your hands, and unlocked the side-door, youmight have run down the grass walk without hurting your feet, andflashed it in the faces of the Sunflowers, and had a good look, andgot back to bed again before the clock struck a quarter-past; and thenit would have been done, and couldn't be undone, and you would haveknown whether they look like the picture, and if they wake up withcandles, and you never could have unknown. But now, you'll go onputting off, and being frightened about it, and perhaps to-morrow Jaelwill tell Grandmamma you were asleep, and she won't let you have aRushlight any more, not even when you are a grown-up young lady; andeven when you get married and go away, you may marry a man who won'tlet you have one; and so you may never never know what you want toknow, all because you're a Michaelmas Goose. "

Then the Rushlight began to get dim again, so I got up and snuffed it, and it shone out bright, and I thought, "If it was Margery she woulddo it straight off. I won't be a Michaelmas Goose; I'll go while I'mup, and be back before the stairs clock strikes again, and then itwill be done and can't be undone, and I shall know, and can't unknow. "

So I took up the Rushlight and went as fast as I could. 

I met a black beetle on the back-stairs, which was horrid, but I wenton. The side-door key is very rusty and very stiff; I had to put downthe Rushlight and use both my hands, and just then the clock struckthe half-hour, which was rather a good thing, for it drowned the noiseof the lock. It did not take me two minutes to run down the grasspath, and there were the Sunflowers. 

I did it and it can't be undone, but I don't know what I wanted toknow after all, for the moon was shining in their faces, so they maynot have been really sound asleep. They are so tall, the Rushlight wastoo heavy for me to lift right up, so I opened the door and took outthe candle, and flashed it in their faces. But they did not take asmuch notice as I expected. Their glory leaves looked rather narrow andtight, but they were not quite like the flower-women in the picture. 

Sunflowers are alive, I know; they look so different when they aredead. And I am sure they go to sleep, and wake up with candles, or Dr. Brown would not have said so. But it is rather a quiet kind of beingalive and awake, I think. Something like Grandmamma, when she is verystiff on Sunday afternoon, and goes to sleep upright in a chair, andwakes up a little when her book drops. But not alive and awake likeMargery's black cat, which must have heard me open the side-door, andfollowed me without my seeing it. It did frighten me, with jumping outof the bushes, and looking at me with yellow eyes!

Then I saw another eye. The eye of a moth, who was on one of theleaves. A most beautiful fellow! His coloured wings were rather tight, like the Sunflower's glory leaves, but he was wide awake--watching thecandle. 

I should have got back to bed quicker if it had not been for Margery'sblack cat and the night-moths. I wanted to get the cat into the houseagain, but she would not follow me, and the moths would; and I hadsuch hard work to keep them out of the Rushlight. 

There was nothing to drown the noise the key made when I locked theside-door again, and when I got to the bottom of the back-stairs, Isaw a light at the top, and there was Grandmamma in the most awfulnight-cap you can imagine, with a candle in one hand, and thewatchman's rattle in the other. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 HEADS OFF!--JAEL AND MASTER JOHN--FAREWELL--A FRIEND IN NEED--A FREE PARDON. 

The worst of it was, I caught such a very bad cold, I gave moretrouble than ever; besides Grandmamma having rheumatism in her backwith the draught up the back-stairs, and nothing on but her nightthings and the watchman's rattle. I knew I deserved to be punished, but I did not think my punishment would have been such a terrible one. 

I hoped it might have been lessons, or even, perhaps, not having theRushlight again, but I did not think Grandmamma would think of hurtingthe Sunflowers. 

She waited till I was well enough to go out, and I really began tothink she was going to be kind enough to forgive me, with a freeforgiveness. But that day she called me to her, and spoke veryseriously, and said, that to punish me for my misconduct, and to tryand cure me of the babyish nonsense I gave way to about things, shehad decided to have all the Sunflowers destroyed at once, and not tohave any seed sown for new ones, any more. The gardener was to do itnext morning, and I was to be there to see. She hoped it would make meremember the occasion, and teach me better sense for the future. 

I should have begged and prayed, but it is no use begging and prayingto Grandmamma; Jael attends more to that. There was no comfortanywhere, except in thinking that Margery would be at home in twodays, and that I could pour out all my sorrow to her. 

As I went crying down the passage I met Jael. 

"What's the matter now?" said she. 

"Grandmamma's going to have all the Sunflowers killed, " I sobbed. "Oh, I wish I'd never gone to look at them with the Rushlight!"

"That's how it is, " said Jael sagely, "folks always wishes they'd donedifferent when it's too late. But don't sob your heart out thatfashion, Miss Grace. Come into the pantry and I'll give you a bit ofcake. "

"Thank you, dear Jael, you're very kind, but I don't think I _could_eat cake. Oh, Jael, dear Jael! Do you think she would spare one, justone?"

"That she wouldn't, Miss Grace, so you needn't trouble your head aboutit. When your grandmamma's made up her mind, there's no one ever Isaw can move her, unless it be Dr. Brown. Besides, the missus hasnever much mattered those Sunflowers. They were your mamma's fancy, and she'd as many whims as you have, and put your grandmamma about agood deal. She was always at your papa to be doing this and that tothe place, 'Wasting good money, ' as your grandmamma said. Your poorpapa was a very easy gentleman. He wanted to please his wife, and hewanted to please his mother. Deary me! I remember his coming to me inthis very pantry--I don't know if it would be more than three monthsafore they were both taken--and, standing there, as it might be you, Miss Grace, and saying--'Jael, ' he says, 'this window looks out on theyard, ' he says; 'do you ever smell anything, Jael? You are here a gooddeal. ' 'Master John, ' I says, 'I thank my Maker, my nose nevertroubles me; but if it did, ' I says, 'I hope I know better than to set_my_self up to smell more than my neighbours. '--'To be sure, to besure, ' he says, looking round in a foolish kind of a way at the sink. Then he says, 'Jael, do you ever taste anything in the water? My wifethinks there's something wrong with the well. ' 'Master John, ' I says, 'with all respect to your good lady, she disturbs her mind a deal toomuch with books. An ounce of ex-perience, I says, is worth a pound ofbook learning; and I'll tell you what my father said to them partiesthat goes round stirring up stinks, when they were for meddling withhis farm-yard. "Let wells alone, " he says, "and muck-heaps likewise. "And my father passed three-score years and ten, Master John, and diedwhere he was born. ' Well-a-day! I see your poor Pa now. He stood andlooked as puzzled as a bee in a bottle. Then he says--'Well, Jael, mywife says Sunflowers are good against fevers; and there's no harm insowing some. ' Which he did that very afternoon, she standing by him, with her hand on his shoulder; but, bless ye, my dear! they were tooklong before the seeds was up. Your mother was a pretty woman, I'll saythat for her. You'd never have thought it, to look at her, that shewas so fond of poking in dirty places. "

"Jael!" I said, "Mamma was right about the smells in the back-yard. Margery and I hold our noses"--"you'd a deal better hold yourtongues, " interrupted Jael. 

"We do, Jael, we do, because I don't like mustard-plasters on mythroat, and when the back-yard smells a good deal, my throat is alwayssore. But oh, Jael! If Sunflowers are good for smells, don't you thinkwe might tell Grandmamma, and she would let us have them for that?"

"She'll not, Miss Grace, " said Jael, "so don't worry on. They'reragged things at the best, and all they're good for is to fattenfowls; and I shall tell Gardener he may cut their heads off and throw'em to the poultry, before he roots up the rest. "

I could not bear to hear her, so I went out to bid the Sunflowersgood-bye. 

I held their dear rough stems, rough with nice little white hairs, andI knew how easily their poor heads would cut off, there is so muchpith inside the stems. 

I kissed all their dear faces one after another. They are very nice tokiss, especially in the sun, for then they smell honey-sweet, likeblue Scabious, and lots of flowers that have not much scent, but onlysmell as if bees would like them. I kissed them once round for myself, and then once for Margery, for I knew how sorry she would be. 

And it was whilst I was holding St. George of England's face in my twohands, kissing him for Margery, that I saw the Dignotion on my middlefinger-nail. 

A Gift, a Beau, _A Friend_!--

And then it flashed into my mind, all in a moment--"There can be nofriend to me and the Sunflowers, except Dr. Brown, for Jael says he isthe only person who ever changes Grandmamma's mind. "

I dawdled that night when I could not make up my mind about going outwith the Rushlight, but I did not wait one minute now. I climbed overthe garden wall into the road, and ran as hard as I could run up tothe top of the hill, where lived a man--I mean where Dr. Brown lived. 

Now, I know that he is the kindest person that ever could be. I toldhim everything, and he asked particularly about my throat and thesmells. Then he looked graver than I ever saw him, and said, "Listen, little woman; you must look out for spots on your little finger-nails. You're going away for a bit, till I've doctored these smells. Don'tturn your eyes into saucers. Margery shall go with you; I wish I couldturn ye both into flowers and plant ye out in a field for threemonths! but you are not to give me any trouble by turning home-sick, do you hear? I shall have trouble enough with Grandmamma, though I amjoint guardian with her (your dear mother's doing, that!), and havesome voice in the disposal of your fates. Now, if I save theSunflowers, will you promise me not to cry to come home again till Isend for you?"

"Shall you be able to change her mind, to let us have Sunflowers sownfor next year, too?"

"Yes!"

"Then I promise. "

I could have danced for joy. The only thing that made me feeluncomfortable was having to tell Dr. Brown about the spot on mymiddle finger-nail. He Would ask all about it, and so I let out aboutJohnson's Dictionary and the Dignotions, and Brown's Vulgar Errors, and I was afraid Margery would say I had been very silly, and let acat out of a bag. 

I hope he was not vexed about his vulgar errors. He only laughed tillhe nearly tumbled off his chair. 

I never did have a spot on my journey-to-go nail, but we went away allthe same; so I suppose Dignotions do not always tell true. 

When Grandmamma forgave me, and told me she would spare the Sunflowersthis time, as Dr. Brown had begged them off, she said--"And Dr. Brownassures me, Grace, that when you are stronger you will have moresense. I am sure I hope he is right. "

I hope so, too!

DANDELION CLOCKS. 

Every child knows how to tell the time by a dandelion clock. You blowtill the seed is all blown away, and you count each of the puffs--anhour to a puff. Every child knows this, and very few children want toknow any more on the subject. It was Peter Paul's peculiarity that healways did want to know more about everything; a habit whose first andforemost inconvenience is that one can so seldom get people to answerone's questions. 

Peter Paul and his two sisters were playing in the pastures. Rich, green, Dutch pastures, unbroken by hedge or wall, whichstretched--like an emerald ocean--to the horizon and met the sky. Thecows stood ankle-deep in it and chewed the cud, the clouds sailedslowly over it to the sea, and on a dry hillock sat Mother, in herbroad sun-hat, with one eye to the cows and one to the linen she wasbleaching, thinking of her farm. 

Peter Paul and his sisters had found another little hillock where, among some tufts of meadow-flowers which the cows had not yet eaten, were dandelion clocks. They divided them quite fairly, and began totell each other the time of day. 

Little Anna blew very hard for her size, and as the wind blew too, herclock was finished in a couple of puffs. "One, two. It's only twoo'clock, " she said, with a sigh. 

Her elder sister was more careful, but still the wind was againstthem. "One, two, three. It's three o'clock by me, " she said. 

Peter Paul turned his back to the wind, and held his clock low. "One, two, three, four, five. It's five o'clock by my dandelion--I wonderwhy the fairy clocks all go differently. "

"We blow differently, " said his sister. 

"Then they don't really tell the time, " said Peter Paul. 

"Oh yes, they do--the fairy time. " And the little girls got moreclocks, and turned their backs to the wind in imitation of Peter Paul, and went on blowing. But the boy went up to his mother. 

"Mother, why do dandelion clocks keep different time? It was only twoo'clock by Anna's, and three o'clock by Leena's, and five by mine. Itcan't really be evening with me and only afternoon with Anna. Thedays don't go quicker with one person than another, do they?"

"Drive Daisy and Buttermilk nearer this way, " said his mother; "and ifyou must ask questions, ask your Uncle Jacob. "

There was a reason for sending the boy to Uncle Jacob with hisdifficulties. He had been born after his father's death, and UncleJacob had taken up the paternal duties. It was he who had chosen thechild's name. He had called him Peter Paul after Peter Paul Rubens, not that he hoped the boy would become a painter, but he wished him tobe called after some great man, and--having just returned fromAntwerp--the only great man he could think of was Peter Paul. 

"Give a boy a great name, " said Uncle Jacob, "and if there's any stuffin him, there's a chance he'll live up to it. "

This was a kindly way of putting the proverb about giving a dog a badname, and Uncle Jacob's strongest quality was kindness--kindness andthe cultivation of tulips. 

He was sitting in the summer-house smoking, and reading over abulb-list when Peter Paul found him. 

"Uncle Jacob, why do dandelion clocks tell different time to differentpeople? Sixty seconds make a minute, sixty minutes make an hour, twenty-four hours make a day, three hundred and sixty-five days make ayear. That's right, isn't it? Hours are the same length for everybody, aren't they? But if I got to tea-time when it was only two o'clockwith Anna, and went on like that, first the days and then the yearswould go much quicker with me, and I don't know if I should diesooner, --but it couldn't be, could it?"

"Certainly not, " said Uncle Jacob; and he went on with his list. "Yellow Pottebakker, Yellow Tournesol and Yellow Rose. "

"Then the fairy clocks tell lies?" said Peter Paul. 

"That you must ask Godfather Time, " replied Uncle Jacob, jocosely. "Heis responsible for the clocks and the hour-glasses. "

"Where does he live?" asked the boy. 

But Uncle Jacob had spread the list on the summer-house table; he wasfairly immersed in it and in a cloud of tobacco smoke, and Peter Pauldid not like to disturb him. 

"Twenty-five Bybloemens, twenty-five Bizards, twenty-five Roses, anda seedling-bed for first bloom this year. "

 * * * * *

Some of Uncle Jacob's seedling tulips were still "breeders, " whosefuture was yet unmarked[6] (he did not name them in hope, as he hadchristened his nephew!) when Peter Paul went to sea. 

[Footnote 6: The first bloom of seedling tulips is usually withoutstripes or markings, and it is often years before they break intostripes; till then they are called breeders, and are not named. ]

He was quite unfitted for a farmer. He was always looking forward towhat he should do hereafter, or backward to the time when he believedin fairy clocks. Now a farmer should live in the present, and timehimself by a steady-going watch with an enamelled face. Then littlethings get done at the right time, which is everything in farming. 

"Peter Paul puzzles too much, " said his mother, "and that is yourfault, Jacob, for giving him a great name. But while he's thinking, Daisy misses her mash and the hens lay away. He'll never make afarmer. Indeed, for that matter, men never farm like women, and Leenawill take to it after me. She knows all my ways. "

They were a kindly family, with no minds to make this short lifebitter for each other by thwarting, as so many well-meaning relativesdo; so the boy chose his own trade and went to sea. 

He saw many places and many people; he saw a great deal of life, andcame face to face with death more than once, and under strange shapes. He found answers to a lot of the old questions, and then new onescame in their stead. Each year seemed to hold more than a life-time athome would have held, and yet how quickly the years went by!

A great many had gone by when Peter Paul set foot once more upon Dutchsoil. 

"And it only seems like yesterday that I went away!" said he. 

Mother was dead. That was the one great change. Peter Paul's sistershad inherited the farm. They managed it together, and they had dividedtheir mother's clothes, and also her rings and ear-rings, her goldskull-cap and head-band and pins, --the heirlooms of a Dutch farmeress. 

"It matters very little how we divide them, dear, " Anna had said, "forI shall never marry, and they will all go to your girl. "

The elder sister was married and had two children. She had grown upvery pretty--a fair woman, with liquid misleading eyes. They looked asif they were gazing into the far future, but they did not see an inchbeyond the farm. Anna was a very plain copy of her in body, in mindshe was the elder sister's echo. They were very fond of each other, and the prettiest thing about them was their faithful love for theirmother, whose memory was kept as green as pastures after rain. 

On Sunday Peter Paul went with them to her grave, and then to service. The ugly little church, the same old clerk, even the look of that partof the seat where Peter Paul had kicked the paint off duringsermons--all strengthened the feeling that it could only have been afew days since he was there before. 

As they walked home he told his sisters about the various religiousservices he had seen abroad. They were curious to hear about them, under a sort of protest, for they disapproved of every form of worshipbut their own. 

"The music in some of the cathedrals is very beautiful, " said PeterPaul. "And the choristers in their gowns, singing as they come, alwaysaffect me. No doubt only some are devout at heart, and otherscareless--which is also the case with the congregation--but outwardreverence is, at the lowest, an acknowledgment of what we owe, and formy own part it helps me. Those white figures are not angels I know;but they make one think of them, and I try to be worthier of singingGOD'S praises with them. "

There was a little pause, and Leena's beautiful eyes were full ofreflections. 

Presently she said, "Who washes all the white gowns?"

"I really don't know, " said Peter Paul. 

"I fancy they don't bleach anywhere as they do in Holland, " shecontinued. "Indeed, Brother, I doubt if Dutchwomen are what they were. No one bleaches as Mother did. Mother bleached beautifully. "

"Yes, she bleached beautifully, " said Anna. 

Peter Paul was only to be three weeks at home before he sailed again;but when ten days were over, he began to think the rest of the timewould never come to an end. And this was from no want of love for hissisters, or of respect for their friends. One cannot help having anirritable brain, which rides an idea to the moon and home again, without stirrups, whilst some folks are getting the harness of wordson to its back. There had been hours in his youth when all theunsolved riddles, the untasted joys, the great possibilities of even acommon existence like his, so pressed upon him, that the shortness ofthe longest life of man seemed the most pitiable thing about it. Butwhen he took tea with Vrow Schmidt and her daughters, and supper-timewould not come, Peter Paul thought of the penance of the WanderingJew, and felt very sorry for him. 

The sisters would have been glad if Peter Paul would have given up thesea and settled down with them. Leena had a plan of her own for it. She wanted him to marry Vrow Schmidt's niece, who had a farm. 

"But I am afraid you do not care for young ladies?" said she. 

Peter Paul got red

"Vrow Schmidt's niece is a very nice young lady, " said he. 

He was not thinking of Vrow Schmidt's niece, he was thinking ofsomething else--something for which he would have liked a littlesympathy; but he doubted whether Leena could give it to him. Indeed, to cure heartache is Godfather Time's business, and even he is notinvariably successful. It was probably a sharp twinge that made PeterPaul say, "Have you never wondered that when one's life is so veryshort, one can manage to get so much pain into it?"

Leena dropped her work and looked up. "You don't say so?" said she. "Dear Brother, is it rheumatism? I'm sure it must be a dreadful riskbeing out on the masts in the night air, without a roof over yourhead. But do you wear flannel, Peter Paul? Mother was very muchtroubled with rheumatism latterly. She thought it was the dews atmilking time, and she always wore flannel. "

"Yes, dear, Mother always wore flannel, " said Anna. 

Peter Paul satisfied them on this head. He wore flannel, red flanneltoo, which has virtues of its own. 

Leena was more anxious than ever that he should marry Vrow Schmidt'sniece, and be taken good care of. 

But it was not to be: Peter Paul went back to his ship and into thewide world again. 

Uncle Jacob would have given him an off-set of his new tulip--a realnovelty, and named--if he had had any place to plant it in. 

"I've a bed of breeders that will be worth looking at next time youcome home, " said he. 

Leena walked far over the pastures with Peter Paul. She was very fondof him, and she had a woman's perception that they would miss him morethan he could miss them. 

"I am very sorry you could not settle down with us, " she said, and hereyes brimmed over. 

Peter Paul kissed the tears tenderly from her cheeks. 

"Perhaps I shall when I am older, and have shaken off a few more of mywhims into the sea. I'll come back yet, Leena, and live very near toyou and grow tulips, and be as good an old bachelor-uncle to your boyas Uncle Jacob was to me. "

"And if a foreign wife would suit you better than one of theSchmidts, " said Leena, re-arranging his bundle for him, "don't thinkwe sha'n't like her. Any one you love will be welcome to us, PeterPaul--as welcome as you have been. "

When they got to the hillock where Mother used to sit, Peter Paul tookher once more into his arms. 

"Good-bye, good Sister, " he said. "I have been back in my childhoodagain, and GOD knows that is both pleasant and good for one. "

"And it is funny that you should say so, " said Leena, smiling throughher tears; "for when we were children you were never happy except inthinking of when you should be a man. "

"And there sit your children, just where we used to play, " said PeterPaul. 

"They are blowing dandelion clocks, " said Leena, and she called them. 

"Come and bid Uncle Peter good-bye. "

He kissed them both. 

"Well, what o'clock is it?" said he. The boy gave one mighty puff anddispersed his fairy clock at a breath. 

"One o'clock, " he cried stoutly. 

"One, two, three, four o'clock, " said the girl. And they went back totheir play. 

And Leena stood by them, with Mother's old sun-hat on her young head, and watched Peter Paul's figure over the flat pastures till it was anindistinguishable speck. 

He turned back a dozen times to wave his hands to her, and to thechildren telling the fairy time. 

But he did not ask now why dandelion clocks go differently withdifferent people. Godfather Time had told him. He teaches us manythings. 

THE TRINITY FLOWER. 

A LEGEND. 

 "Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own The wiser love severely kind: Since, richer for its chastening grown, I see, whereas I once was blind. "

_The Clear Vision_, J. G. WHITTIER. 

In days of yore there was once a certain hermit, who dwelt in a cell, which he had fashioned for himself from a natural cave in the side ofa hill. 

Now this hermit had a great love for flowers, and was moreover learnedin the virtues of herbs, and in that great mystery of healing whichlies hidden among the green things of GOD. And so it came to pass thatthe country people from all parts came to him for the simples whichgrew in the little garden which he had made before his cell. And ashis fame spread, and more people came to him, he added more and moreto the plat which he had reclaimed from the waste land around. 

But after many years there came a Spring when the colours of theflowers seemed paler to the hermit than they used to be; and as Summerdrew on, their shapes became indistinct, and he mistook one plant foranother; and when Autumn came, he told them by their various scents, and by their form, rather than by sight; and when the flowers weregone, and Winter had come, the hermit was quite blind. 

Now in the hamlet below there lived a boy who had become known to thehermit on this manner. On the edge of the hermit's garden there grewtwo crab trees, from the fruit of which he made every year a certainconfection, which was very grateful to the sick. One year many ofthese crab-apples were stolen, and the sick folk of the hamlet hadvery little conserve. So the following year, as the fruit wasripening, the hermit spoke every day to those who came to his cell, saying--

"I pray you, good people, to make it known that he who robs these crabtrees, robs not me alone, which is dishonest, but the sick, which isinhuman. "

And yet once more the crab-apples were taken. 

The following evening, as the hermit sat on the side of the hill, heoverheard two boys disputing about the theft. 

"It must either have been a very big man, or a small boy, to do it, "said one. "So I say, and I have my reason. "

"And what is thy reason, Master Wiseacre?" asked the other. 

"The fruit is too high to be plucked except by a very big man, " saidthe first boy. "And the branches are not strong enough for any but achild to climb. "

"Canst thou think of no other way to rob an apple tree but by standinga-tip-toe, or climbing up to the apples, when they should come down tothee?" said the second boy. "Truly thy head will never save thy heels;but here's a riddle for thee:

 Riddle me riddle me re, Four big brothers are we; We gather the fruit, but climb never a tree. 

Who are they?"

"Four tall robbers, I suppose, " said the other. 

"Tush!" cried his comrade. "They are the four winds; and when theywhistle, down falls the ripest. But others can shake besides thewinds, as I will show thee if thou hast any doubts in the matter. "

And as he spoke he sprang to catch the other boy, who ran from him;and they chased each other down the hill, and the hermit heard nomore. 

But as he turned to go home he said, "The thief was not far away whenthou stoodst near. Nevertheless, I will have patience. It needs notthat I should go to seek thee, for what saith the Scripture? _Thysin_ will find thee out. " And he made conserve of such apples as wereleft, and said nothing. 

Now after a certain time a plague broke out in the hamlet; and it wasso sore, and there were so few to nurse the many who were sick, that, though it was not the wont of the hermit ever to leave his place, yetin their need he came down and ministered to the people in thevillage. And one day, as he passed a certain house, he heard moansfrom within, and entering, he saw lying upon a bed a boy who tossedand moaned in fever, and cried out most miserably that his throat wasparched and burning. And when the hermit looked upon his face, beholdit was the boy who had given the riddle of the four winds upon theside of the hill. 

Then the hermit fed him with some of the confection which he had withhim, and it was so grateful to the boy's parched palate, that hethanked and blessed the hermit aloud, and prayed him to leave a morselof it behind, to soothe his torments in the night. 

Then said the hermit, "My Son, I would that I had more of thisconfection, for the sake of others as well as for thee. But indeed Ihave only two trees which bear the fruit whereof this is made; and intwo successive years have the apples been stolen by some thief, thereby robbing not only me, which is dishonest, but the poor, whichis inhuman. "

Then the boy's theft came back to his mind, and he burst into tears, and cried, "My Father, I took the crab-apples!"

And after a while he recovered his health; the plague also abated inthe hamlet, and the hermit went back to his cell. But the boy wouldthenceforth never leave him, always wishing to show his penitence andgratitude. And though the hermit sent him away, he ever returned, saying--

"Of what avail is it to drive me from thee, since I am resolved toserve thee, even as Samuel served Eli, and Timothy ministered unto St. Paul?"

But the hermit said, "My rule is to live alone, and withoutcompanions; wherefore begone. "

And when the boy still came, he drove him from the garden. 

Then the boy wandered far and wide, over moor and bog, and gatheredrare plants and herbs, and laid them down near the hermit's cell. Andwhen the hermit was inside, the boy came into the garden, and gatheredthe stones and swept the paths, and tied up such plants as weredrooping, and did all neatly and well, for he was a quick and skilfullad. And when the hermit said, "Thou hast done well, and I thank thee; but now begone, " he onlyanswered, "What avails it, when I am resolved to serve thee?"

So at last there came a day when the hermit said, "It may be that itis ordained; wherefore abide, my Son. "

And the boy answered, "Even so, for I am resolved to serve thee. "

Thus he remained. And thenceforward the hermit's garden throve as ithad never thriven before. For, though he had skill, the hermit was oldand feeble; but the boy was young and active, and he worked hard, andit was to him a labour of love. And being a clever boy, he quicklyknew the names and properties of the plants as well as the hermithimself. And when he was not working, he would go far afield to seekfor new herbs. And he always returned to the village at night. 

Now when the hermit's sight began to fail, the boy put him right if hemistook one plant for another; and when the hermit became quite blind, he relied completely upon the boy to gather for him the herbs that hewanted. And when anything new was planted, the boy led the old man tothe spot, that he might know that it was so many paces in such adirection from the cell, and might feel the shape and texture of theleaves, and learn its scent. And through the skill and knowledge ofthe boy, the hermit was in no wise hindered from preparing hisaccustomed remedies, for he knew the names and virtues of the herbs, and where every plant grew. And when the sun shone, the boy wouldguide his master's steps into the garden, and would lead him up tocertain flowers; but to those which had a perfume of their own the oldman could go without help, being guided by the scent. And as hefingered their leaves and breathed their fragrance, he would say, "Blessed be GOD for every herb of the field, but thrice blessed forthose that smell. "

And at the end of the garden was set a bush of rosemary. "For, " saidthe hermit, "to this we must all come. " Because rosemary is the herbthey scatter over the dead. And he knew where almost everything grew, and what he did not know the boy told him. 

Yet for all this, and though he had embraced poverty and solitude withjoy, in the service of GOD and man, yet so bitter was blindness tohim, that he bewailed the loss of his sight, with a grief that neverlessened. 

"For, " said he, "if it had pleased our Lord to send me any otheraffliction, such as a continual pain or a consuming sickness, I wouldhave borne it gladly, seeing it would have left me free to see theseherbs, which I use for the benefit of the poor. But now the sicksuffer through my blindness, and to this boy also I am a continualburden. "

And when the boy called him at the hours of prayer, paying, "MyFather, it is now time for the Nones office, for the marigold isclosing, " or, "The Vespers bell will soon sound from the valley, forthe bindweed bells are folded, " and the hermit recited the appointedprayers, he always added, "I beseech Thee take away my blindness, as Thou didst heal Thy servantthe son of Timæus. "

And as the boy and he sorted herbs, he cried, "Is there no balm in Gilead?"

And the boy answered, "The balm of Gilead grows six full paces fromthe gate, my Father. "

But the hermit said, "I spoke in a figure, my Son. I meant not thatherb. But, alas! Is there no remedy to heal the physician? No cure forthe curer?"

And the boy's heart grew heavier day by day, because of the hermit'sgrief. For he loved him. 

Now one morning as the boy came up from the village, the hermit methim, groping painfully with his hands, but with joy in hiscountenance, and he said, "Is that thy step, my Son? Come in, for Ihave somewhat to tell thee. "

And he said, "A vision has been vouchsafed to me, even a dream. Moreover, I believe that there shall be a cure for my blindness. "

Then the boy was glad, and begged of the hermit to relate his dream, which he did as follows:--

"I dreamed, and behold I stood in the garden--thou also with me--andmany people were gathered at the gate, to whom, with thy help, I gaveherbs of healing in such fashion as I have been able since thisblindness came upon me. And when they were gone, I smote upon myforehead, and said, 'Where is the herb that shall heal my affliction?'And a voice beside me said, 'Here, my Son. ' And I cried to thee, 'Whospoke?' And thou saidst, 'It is a man in pilgrim's weeds, and lo, hehath a strange flower in his hand. ' Then said the Pilgrim, 'It is aTrinity Flower. Moreover, I suppose that when thou hast it, thou wiltsee clearly. ' Then I thought that thou didst take the flower from thePilgrim and put it in my hand. And lo, my eyes were opened, and I sawclearly. And I knew the Pilgrim's face, though where I have seen him Icannot yet recall. But I believed him to be Raphael the Archangel--hewho led Tobias, and gave sight to his father. And even as it came tome to know him, he vanished; and I saw him no more. "

"And what was the Trinity Flower like, my Father?" asked the boy. 

"It was about the size of Herb Paris, my Son, " replied the hermit, "But instead of being fourfold every way, it numbered the mysticThree. Every part was threefold. The leaves were three, the petalsthree, the sepals three. The flower was snow-white, but on each of thethree parts it was stained with crimson stripes, like white garmentsdyed in blood. "[7]

[Footnote 7: _Trillium erythrocarpum_. North America. ]

Then the boy started up, saying, "If there be such a plant on theearth I will find it for thee. "

But the hermit laid his hand on him, and said, "Nay, my Son, leave menot, for I have need of thee. And the flower will come yet, and then Ishall see. "

And all day long the old man murmured to himself, "Then I shall see. "

"And didst thou see me, and the garden, in thy dream, my Father?"asked the boy. 

"Ay, that I did, my Son. And I meant to say to thee that it muchpleaseth me that thou art grown so well, and of such a strangely faircountenance. Also the garden is such as I have never before beheld it, which must needs be due to thy care. But wherefore didst thou not tellme of those fair palms that have grown where the thorn hedge was wontto be? I was but just stretching out my hand for some, when I awoke. "

"There are no palms there, my Father, " said the boy. 

"Now, indeed it is thy youth that makes thee so little observant, "said the hermit. "However, I pardon thee, if it were only for thatgood thought which moved thee to plant a yew beyond the rosemary bush;seeing that the yew is the emblem of eternal life, which lies beyondthe grave. "

But the boy said, "There is no yew there, my Father. "

"Have I not seen it, even in a vision?" cried the hermit. "Thou wiltsay next that all the borders are not set with hearts-ease, whichindeed must be through thy industry; and whence they come I know not, but they are most rare and beautiful, and my eyes long sore to seethem again. "

"Alas, my Father!" cried the boy, "the borders are set with rue, andthere are but a few clumps of hearts-ease here and there. "

"Could I forget what I saw in an hour?" asked the old man angrily. "And did not the holy Raphael himself point to them, saying, 'Blessedare the eyes that behold this garden, where the borders are set withhearts-ease, and the hedges crowned with palm!' But thou wouldst knowbetter than an archangel, forsooth. "

Then the boy wept; and when the hermit heard him weeping, he put hisarm round him and said, "Weep, not, my dear Son. And I pray thee, pardon me that I spokeharshly to thee. For indeed I am ill-tempered by reason of myinfirmities; and as for thee, GOD will reward thee for thy goodness tome, as I never can. Moreover, I believe it is thy modesty, which is asgreat as thy goodness, that hath hindered thee from telling me of allthat thou hast done for my garden, even to those fair and sweeteverlasting flowers, the like of which I never saw before, which thouhast set in the east border, and where even now I hear the beeshumming in the sun. "

Then the boy looked sadly out into the garden, and answered, "I cannotlie to thee. There are no everlasting flowers. It is the flowers ofthe thyme in which the bees are rioting. And in the hedge bottom therecreepeth the bitter-sweet. "

But the hermit heard him not. He had groped his way out into thesunshine, and wandered up and down the walks, murmuring to himself, "Then I shall see. "

Now when the Summer was past, one Autumn morning there came to thegarden gate a man in pilgrim's weeds; and when he saw the boy hebeckoned to him, and giving him a small tuber root, he said, "Give this to thy master. It is the root of the Trinity Flower. "

And he passed on down towards the valley. 

Then the boy ran hastily to the hermit; and when he had told him, andgiven him the root, he said, "The face of the pilgrim is known to me also, O my Father! For Iremember when I lay sick of the plague, that ever it seemed to me asif a shadowy figure passed in and out, and went up and down thestreets, and his face was as the face of this pilgrim. But--I cannotdeceive thee--methought it was the Angel of Death. "

Then the hermit mused; and after a little space he answered, "It was then also that I saw him. I remember now. Nevertheless, let usplant the root, and abide what GOD shall send. "

And thus they did. 

And as the Autumn and Winter went by, the hermit became very feeble, but the boy constantly cheered him, saying, "Patience, my Father. Thoushalt see yet!"

But the hermit replied, "My Son, I repent me that I have not beenpatient under affliction. Moreover, I have set thee an ill example, inthat I have murmured at that which GOD--Who knoweth best--ordainedfor me. "

And when the boy ofttimes repeated, "Thou shalt yet see, " the hermitanswered, "If GOD will. When GOD will. As GOD will. "

And when he said the prayers for the Hours, he no longer added what hehad added beforetime, but evermore repeated, "If THOU wilt. When THOUwilt. As THOU wilt!"

And so the Winter passed; and when the snow lay on the ground the boyand the hermit talked of the garden; and the boy no longercontradicted the old man, though he spoke continually of thehearts-ease, and the everlasting flowers, and the palm. For he said, "When Spring comes I may be able to get these plants, and fit thegarden to his vision. "

And at length the Spring came. And with it rose the Trinity Flower. And when the leaves unfolded, they were three, as the hermit had said. Then the boy was wild with joy and with impatience. And when the sunshone for two days together, he would kneel by the flower, and say, "Ipray thee, Lord, send showers, that it may wax apace. " And when itrained, he said, "I pray Thee, send sunshine, that it may blossomspeedily. " For he knew not what to ask. And he danced about thehermit, and cried, "Soon shalt thou see. "

But the hermit trembled, and said, "Not as I will, but as THOU wilt!"

And so the bud formed. And at length one evening, before he went downto the hamlet, the boy came to the hermit and said, "The bud is almostbreaking, my Father. To-morrow thou shalt see. "

Then the hermit moved his hands till he laid them on the boy's head, and he said, "The Lord repay thee sevenfold for all thou hast done for me, dearchild. And now I pray thee, my Son, give me thy pardon for all inwhich I have sinned against thee by word or deed, for indeed mythoughts of thee have ever been tender. " And when the boy wept, thehermit still pressed him, till he said that he forgave him. And asthey unwillingly parted, the hermit said, "I pray thee, dear Son, toremember that, though late, I conformed myself to the will of GOD. "

Saying which, the hermit went into his cell, and the boy returned tothe village. 

But so great was his anxiety, that he could not rest; and he returnedto the garden ere it was light, and sat by the flower till the dawn. 

And with the first dim light he saw that the Trinity Flower was inbloom. And as the hermit had said, it was white, and stained withcrimson as with blood. 

Then the boy shed tears of joy, and he plucked the flower and ran intothe hermit's cell, where the hermit lay very still upon his couch. Andthe boy said, "I will not disturb him. When he wakes he will find theflower. " And he went out and sat down outside the cell and waited. Andbeing weary as he waited, he fell asleep. 

Now before sunrise, whilst it was yet early, he was awakened by thevoice of the hermit crying, "My Son, my dear Son!" and he jumped up, saying, "My Father!"

But as he spoke the hermit passed him. And as he passed he turned, andthe boy saw that his eyes were open. And the hermit fixed them longand tenderly on him. 

Then the boy cried, "Ah, tell me, my Father, dost thou see?"

And he answered, "_I see now!_" and so passed on down the walk. 

And as he went through the garden, in the still dawn, the boytrembled, for the hermit's footsteps gave no sound. And he passedbeyond the rosemary bush, and came not again. 

And when the day wore on, and the hermit did not return, the boy wentinto his cell. 

Without, the sunshine dried the dew from paths on which the hermit'sfeet had left no prints, and cherished the Spring flowers burstinginto bloom. But within, the hermit's dead body lay stretched upon hispallet, and the Trinity Flower was in his hand. 

LADDERS TO HEAVEN. 

A LEGEND. [8]

There was a certain valley in which the grass was very green, for itwas watered by a stream which never failed; and once upon a timecertain pious men withdrew from the wide world and from their separatehomes, and made a home in common, and a little world for themselves, in the valley where the grass was green. 

[Footnote 8: "Ladders to Heaven" was an old name for Lilies of theValley. ]

The world outside, in those days, was very rough and full of wars; butthe little world in the Green Valley was quiet and full of peace. Andmost of these men who had taken each other for brothers, and had madeone home there, were happy, and being good deserved to be so. And someof them were good with the ignorant innocence of children, and therewere others who had washed their robes and made them white in theBlood of the Lamb. 

Brother Benedict was so named, because where he came blessingsfollowed. This was said of him, from a child, when the babies stoppedcrying if he ran up to them, and when on the darkest days old womencould see sunbeams playing in his hair. He had always been fond offlowers, and as there were not many things in the Brotherhood of theGreen Valley on which a man could full-spend his energies, whenprayers were said, and duties done, Brother Benedict spent the balanceof his upon the garden. And he grew herbs for healing, and plants thatwere good for food, and flowers that were only pleasant to the eyes;and where he sowed he reaped, and what he planted prospered, as ifblessings followed him. 

In time the fame of his flowers spread beyond the valley, and peoplefrom the world outside sent to beg plants and seeds of him, and senthim others in return. And he kept a roll of the plants that hepossessed, and the list grew longer with every Autumn and everySpring; so that the garden of the monastery became filled with rareand curious things, in which Brother Benedict took great pride. 

The day came when he thought that he took too much pride. For he said, "The cares of the garden are, after all, cares of this world, and Ihave set my affections upon things of the earth. " And at last, it sotroubled him that he obtained leave to make a pilgrimage to the cellof an old hermit, whose wisdom was much esteemed, and to him he toldhis fears. 

But when Brother Benedict had ended his tale, the old man said, "Go inpeace. What a man labours for he must love, if he be made in the imageof his Maker; for He rejoices in the works of His hands. "

So Brother Benedict returned, and his conscience was at ease till theAutumn, when a certain abbot, who spent much care and pains upon hisgarden, was on a journey, and rested at the Monastery of the GreenValley. And it appeared that he had more things in his garden thanBrother Benedict, for the abbey was very rich, and he had collectedfar and near. And Brother Benedict was jealous for the garden of themonastery, and then he was wroth with himself for his jealousy; andwhen the abbot had gone he obtained leave, and made a pilgrimage tothe cell of the hermit and told him all. And the old man, looking athim, loved him, and he said:

"My son, a man may bind his soul with fine-drawn strands till it iseither entangled in a web or breaks all bonds. Gird thyself with onestrong line, and let little things go by. "

And Benedict said, "With which line?"

And the hermit answered, "What said Augustine? 'Love, and do what thouwilt. ' If therefore thy labours and thy pride be for others, and notfor thyself, have no fear. He who lives for GOD and for his neighboursmay forget his own soul in safety, and shall find it hereafter; for, for such a spirit--of the toils and pains and pleasures of thislife--grace shall, alike build Ladders unto Heaven. "

Then Benedict bowed his head, and departed; and when he reached homehe found a messenger who had ridden for many days, and who brought hima bundle of roots, and a written message, which ran thus:

"These roots, though common with us, are unknown where thou dwellest. It is a lily, as white and as fragrant as the Lily of theAnnunciation, but much smaller. Beautiful as it is, it is hardy, andif planted in a damp spot and left strictly undisturbed it will spreadand flourish like a weed. It hath a rare and delicate perfume, andhaving white bells on many footstalks up the stem, one above theother, as the angels stood in Jacob's dream, the common children callit Ladders to Heaven. "

And when Brother Benedict read the first part of the letter he laughedhastily, and said, "The abbot hath no such lily. " But when he hadfinished it, he said, "GOD rid my soul of self-seeking! The commonchildren shall have them, and not I. "

And, seizing the plants and a spade, he ran out beyond the bounds ofthe monastery, and down into a little copse where the earth was keptdamp by the waters of the stream which never failed. And there heplanted the roots, and as he turned to go away he said, "The blessingof our Maker rest on thee! And give joy of thy loveliness, andpleasure of thy perfume, to others when I am gone. And let him whoenjoys remember the soul of him who planted thee. "

And he covered his face with his hands, and went back to themonastery. And he did not enter the new plant upon his roll, for hehad no such lily in his garden. 

 * * * * *

Brother Benedict's soul had long departed, when in times of turbulenceand change the monastery was destroyed, and between fire and plunderand reckless destruction everything perished, and even the garden waslaid waste. But no one touched the Lilies of the Valley in the copsebelow, for they were so common that they were looked upon as weeds. And though nothing remained of the brotherhood but old tales, theselingered, and were handed on; and when the children played with thelilies and bickered over them, crying, "My ladder has twelve whiteangels and yours has only eight, " they would often call them BrotherBenedict's flowers, adding, "but the real right name of them isLadders to Heaven. "

And after a time a new race came into the Green Valley and filled it;and the stream which never failed turned many wheels, and trades werebrisk, and they were what are called black trades. And men made moneysoon, and spent it soon, and died soon; and in the time between eachlived for himself, and had little reverence for those who were gone, and less concern for those who should come after. And at first theywere too busy to care for what is only beautiful, but after a timethey built smart houses, and made gardens, and went down into thecopse and tore up clumps of Brother Benedict's flowers, and plantedthem in exposed rockeries, and in pots in dry hot parlours, where theydied, and then the good folk went back for more; and no one reckonedif he was taking more than his fair share, or studied the culture ofwhat he took away, or took the pains to cover the roots of those heleft behind, and in three years there was not left a Ladder to Heavenin all the Green Valley. 

 * * * * *

The Green Valley had long been called the Black Valley, when those wholaboured and grew rich in it awoke--as man must sooner or laterawake--to the needs of the spirit above the flesh. They were a racefamed for music, and they became more so. The love of beauty alsogrew, and was cultivated, and in time there were finer flowersblossoming in that smoky air than under many brighter skies. And withthe earnings of their grimy trades they built a fine church, andadorned it more richly than the old church of the monastery that hadbeen destroyed. 

The parson who served this church and this people was as well-belovedby them as Brother Benedict had been in his day, and it was instriving to link their minds with sympathies of the past as well ashopes of the future, that one day he told them the legend of theLadders to Heaven. A few days afterwards he was wandering near thestream, when he saw two or three lads with grimy faces busily at workin the wood through which the stream ran. At first, when he camesuddenly on them, they looked shyly at one another, and at last onestood up and spoke. 

"It's a few lily roots, sir, we got in the market, and we're plantingthem; and two or three of us have set ourselves to watch that they arenot shifted till they've settled. Maybe we shall none of us see themfair wild here again, any more than Brother Benedict did. For blacktrades are short-lived trades, and there's none of us will be as oldas he. But maybe we can take a pride too in thinking that they'll blowfor other folk and other folk's children when we are gone. "

 * * * * *

Once more the fastidious[9] flowers spread, and became common in thevalley, and were guarded with jealous care; and the memory of BrotherBenedict lingered by the stream, and was doubly blessed. 

[Footnote 9: It is well known that Lilies of the Valley are flowerswhich resent disturbance, though they are perfectly hardy and vigorousif left in peace. ]

For if he is blessed whose love and wisdom add to the world's worth, and make life richer in pleasant things, thrice blessed is he whoseunselfish example shall be culture to the ignorant or the thoughtless, and set Ladders to Heaven for the feet of those who follow him!

THE END. 

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_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized, complete, and uniform Edition published_. 

_It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. Per vol. , issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these willappear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Serieswill be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover wasspecially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing_. 

_The following is a list of the books included in the Series_--

1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES. 

2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 

3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES. 

4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING. 

5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES. 

6. SIX TO SIXTEEN. 

7. LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES. 

8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL. 

9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS. 

10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE THEATRICALS, &c. 

11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES. 

12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN. 

13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I. 

14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II. 

15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. 

16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. 

17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--WonderStories--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations. 

18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs. Ewing's Letters. 

S. P. C. K. , NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W. C. 

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