st think of having them for Saints on Sunday, was that
the yellow does sometimes look so very like a glory round their faces.
We choose by turns which name to give to each, but if there is a very
big one with a lot of yellow flaming out, we always called him St.
George of England, because there is a very old figure of St. George
slaying the Dragon, in a painted window in our Church; and St.
George's hair is yellow, and standing out all round; and when the sun
shines through the window, so that you can't see his nose and his
mouth at all clearly, he looks quite wonderfully like a Sunflower.
Then on week-days, the game I like best is pretending that they are
women changed into flowers.
They feel so grown up with being so tall, that they are much more like
grown-up people turned into flowers than like children. I pretend my
doll is my child when I play with her; but I don't think I could
pretend a Sunflower was my child; and sometimes if Margery leaves me
alone with rather big Sunflowers, when it is getting dusk, and I look
up at them, and they stare at me with their big faces in the twilight,
I get so frightened for fear they should have got leave to go home at
night, _and be just turning_, that I run indoors as hard as ever I
can.
Two or three times I have got up early and gone out to see if any one
of them had no dew; but they have always been drenched, every one
them. Dew, thick over their brown faces, and rolling like tears down
their yellow glories. I am quite sure that I have never seen a
Sunflower yet that had had leave to go home at night, and Margery says
the same. And she is certain to know.
I had a very bad night, the night after Margery went away. I was so
terribly frightened with being alone in the dark. I know it was very
silly, but it was most miserable. I was afraid to go and wake Jael,
and I was more afraid of going to Grandmamma, and I was most of all
afraid of staying where I was. It seemed to be years and years before
the light began to come a little, and the noises left off creaking,
and dropping, and cracking, and moving about.
Next day I had a very bad headache. Jael does not like me when I have
headaches, because I give trouble, and have to have hot water and
mustard for my feet at odd times. Jael does not mind bringing up hot
water at night; but she says she can't abide folk wanting things at
odd times. So she does not like me when I have headaches; and when I
have headaches, I do not muc
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