game, and the plan provided for Christopher also. I had no wish
to be Queen, as far as that went. Dressing up, and walking about the
garden would be no fun for me. I really had looked forward to clearing
away big baskets full of weeds and rubbish, and keeping our five
gardens and the paths between them so tidy as they had never been kept
before. 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 be
selfish.

I had been left as Little Mother to the others, and I had been lucky
enough 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 be
Queen, that I thought I might, perhaps, devise another character for
myself by and by; and that if the others would leave me alone, I would
think about it whilst I was making Adela's bonnet.

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

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

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 between
whiles of making the bonnet. There is an index, so that you can look
out the flowers you want to read about. It was no use our looking out
flowers, except common ones, such as Harry would be allowed to get
bits of out of the big garden to plant in our little gardens, when he
became our Honest Root-gatherer.

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

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

I did not know one of them except the Common Cowslip, but I remembered
that Bessy's aunt once told me that she had a double cowslip. It was
the day I was planting common ones in my garden, when our gardener
despised them. Bessy's aunt despis