ever, they amused themselves, when alone, by talking
together in characters, keeping to the same year after year, till at
length the play was played out. "We were both queens," Mary tells us,
"and we were sisters, and were supposed to live near each other, and we
pretended we had a great many children. In our narratives we allowed
the introduction of fairies, and I used to tell long stories of things
and places and adventures which I feigned I had met with in this my
character of queen. The moment we two set out to walk, we always began
to converse in these characters. My sister used generally to begin
with, 'Well, sister, how do you do to-day? How are the children? Where
have you been?' and before we were a yard from the house we were deep
in talk. Oh, what wonderful tales was I wont to tell of things which I
pretended I had seen, and how many, many happy hours have I and my
sister spent in this way, I being the chief speaker."

Not long after their coming to Kidderminster, Mary's father took her
with him on a visit to a large country house in Shropshire. They drove
all the way in a gig, a man-servant riding behind on horseback. They
reached the house just in time to dress for dinner, at which there was
to be a large party. Mary had to put on her "very best dress, which,"
she tells us, "was a blue silk slip, with a muslin frock over it, a
blue sash, and, oh! sad to say, my silver tiffany hat. I did not dare
but wear it, as it had been sent with me."

A maid had been told off to dress Mary, and "great was the pains which
she took to fix my shepherdess hat on one side, as it was intended to
be worn, and to arrange my hair, which was long and hanging in curls;
but what would I not have given to have got rid of the rustling
tiffany!" Mary describes her consternation when she reached the
drawing-room in this array, and found "a number of great people" there,
but no other child to consort with. When everybody went to walk in the
shrubberies after dinner, and a gentleman offered her his arm, as was
the wont in those days, she was so panic-stricken that she darted up a
bank, through the shrubs and away, and showed herself no more that
evening.

The next thing that happened was that the other little cousin before
mentioned, Henry Sherwood, came to live with the Butts and go to a
day-school in the town. Mary recalls him as she saw him on arriving--a
very small, fair-haired boy, dressed in "a full suit of what used to be
calle