and all over the field cowslips, cowslips, cowslips--to please the
nightingale.

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 of
Mary's Meadow.

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

We had been busy in our gardens, and in the roads and bye-lanes, and
I had not been in Mary's Meadow for a long time before the afternoon
when I put my little trowel, and a bottle of water, and the six
hose-in-hose into a basket, and was glad to get off quietly and alone
to plant them. The highways and hedges were very dusty, but there it
was very green. The nightingale had long been silent, I do not know
where he was, but the rooks were not at all silent; they had been
holding a parliament at the upper end of the field this morning, and
were now all talking at once, and flapping about the tops of the big
elms which were turning bright yellow, whilst down below a flight of
starlings had taken their place, and sat in the prettiest circles; and
groups of hedge-sparrows flew and mimicked them. And in the fields
round about the sheep baaed, and the air, which was very sweet, was so
quiet that these country noises were the only sounds to be heard, and
they could be heard from very far away.

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

And when I looked up I saw the Old Squire coming towards me, and
storming and shaking his fist at me as he came. But with the other
hand he held Saxon by the collar, who was struggling to get away from
him 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 remind