The next morning my parents were gone. I cried sadly, but was
comforted at hearing they would return in a month and fetch me home.
Grandmamma gave me a little basket to gather my flowers in. I went out
to the orchard, and before I had half filled my basket I forgot all my
troubles.

The time I passed at my grandmamma's farm is always in my mind.
Sometimes I think of the good-natured, pied cow that would let me
stroke her while the dairy-maid was milking her. Then I fancy myself
running after the dairy-maid into the nice, clean dairy, and see the
pans full of milk and cream. Then I remember the wood-house; it had
once been a barn, but being grown old, the wood was kept there. I used
to peep about among the fagots to find the eggs the hens sometimes
left there. A hen, grandmamma said, is a kindly bird, always laying
more eggs than she wants on purpose to give them to her mistress for
puddings and custards.

Nothing could have been more pleasant than the day the orchard was
mowed. The hay smelled so sweet and I might toss it about as much as
ever I pleased. It was green at first, and then turned yellow and dry,
and was carried away in a cart to feed the horses.

When the currants and gooseberries were quite ripe, grandmamma had a
sheep-shearing. All the sheep stood under the trees to be sheared.
They were brought out of the field by old Spot, the shepherd dog. I
stood at the gate and watched him drive them all in. When the shearers
had cropped off all their wool, the sheep looked very clean, and
white, and pretty. But, poor things, they ran shivering about with
cold, so that it was a pity to see them.

Great preparations were being made all day for the sheep-shearing
supper. Grandmamma said a sheep-shearing was not to be compared to a
harvest-home, that was so much better. Then the oven was quite full of
plum pudding, and the kitchen was very hot indeed with roasting beef;
yet I can assure you that there was no want at all of either
roast-beef or plum pudding at the sheep-shearing.

I was allowed to sit up until it was almost dark, to see the company
at supper. They sat at a long oak table, which was finely carved, and
as bright as a looking glass. After the happiest day, bed time will
come. I sat up late, but at last grandmamma sent me to bed. Yet,
though I went, I heard the company singing. The sound of their voices
was very sweet indeed as they sang of the meadows and the sheep.

The common supper that we had eve