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
armchair, 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 any 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 despised them too, and she said the double
ones were only fit for a cottage garden. I laughed so much that I tore
the canary-colored string as I was gumming it on to the bonnet, to
think how I could tell her now that cowslips are Queen's flowers, the
common ones as well as the Hose-in-Hose.
Then I looked out the Honeysuckle, it was page 404, and there were no
pictures. I began at the beginning of the chapter; this was it, and it
was as funnily spelt as the preface, but I could read it.
"Chap. cv. _Periclymemum_. Honeysuckles.
"The Honisucle that groweth wilde in euery hedge, although it be very
sweete, yet doe I not bring it into my garden, but let it rest in his
owne place, to serue their senses that trauell by it, or haue no
garden."
I had got so far when James came in. He said--"Letters, Miss."
It was the second post, and there was a letter for me, and a book
parcel; both from Mother.
Mother's letters are always delightful; and, like things she says,
they often seem to come in answer to something you have been thinking
about, and which
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