hat it was Queen Henrietta to whom
the book was dedicated. This was the dedication:--

"TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

"MADAME,--Knowing your Majesty so much delighted with all
the fair flowers of a Garden, and furnished with them as far
beyond others as you are eminent before them; this my Work
of a Garden long before this intended to be published, and
but now only finished, seemed as it were destined to be
first offered into your Highness's hands as of right,
challenging the propriety of Patronage from all others.
Accept, I beseech your Majesty, this speaking Garden, that
may inform you in all the particulars of your store as well
as wants, when you cannot see any of them fresh upon the
ground: and it shall further encourage him to accomplish the
remainder; who in praying that your Highness may enjoy the
heavenly Paradise, after many years' fruition of this
earthly, submitteth to be your Majesties,

"In all humble devotion,

"JOHN PARKINSON."

We like queer old things like this, they are so funny! I liked the
Dedication, and I wondered if the Queen's Garden really was an Earthly
Paradise, and whether she did enjoy reading John Parkinson's book
about flowers in the winter time, when her own flowers were no longer
"fresh upon the ground." And then I wondered what flowers she had, and
I looked out a great many of our chief favourites, and she had several
kinds of them.

We are particularly fond of Daffodils, and she had several kinds of
Daffodils, from the "Primrose Peerlesse,"[1] "of a sweet but stuffing
scent," to "the least Daffodil of all,"[2] which the book says "was
brought to us by a Frenchman called Francis le Vean, the honestest
root-gatherer that ever came over to us."

[Footnote 1: _Narcissus media lutens vulgaris._]

[Footnote 2: _Narcissus minimus_, Parkinson. _N. minor_, Miller.]

The Queen had Cowslips too, though our gardener despised them when he
saw them in my garden. I dug mine up in Mary's Meadow before Father
and the Old Squire went to law; but they were only common Cowslips,
with one Oxlip, by good luck. In the Earthly Paradise there were
"double Cowslips, one within another." And they were called
Hose-in-Hose. I wished I had Hose-in-Hose.

Arthur was quite as much delighted with the Book of Paradise as I. He
said, "Isn't it funny to think of Queen Henrietta Maria gardening! I
wonder if she went trailing up