know, and pale yellow, and white. The
bonnet was Marigold colour, was it not? And one string canary-coloured
and one white. I couldn't tie them, of course, being paper; but
Bessy's aunt doesn't tie her bonnet. She wears it like a helmet, to
shade 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 back
over one shoulder and the canary string over the other. They might be
pinned together behind, perhaps, if they were in my way. Don't you
think so?"

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

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

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

As it was, I knew that if I asked her she would give up the Weeding
Woman. 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 sigh
about the bonnet, and then have turned her whole attention to a blue
robe, and how to manage the ruffles.

But even whilst I was thinking about it, Arthur said: "Of course, Mary
must be the Queen, unless we could think of something else--very
good--for her. If we could have thought of something, Mary, I was
thinking 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 flowers
out 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 Mother
in the