r mistress to make puddings and
custards with.

I do not know which pleased grandmamma best, when we carried her home
a lap-full of eggs, or a few violets; for she was particularly fond of
violets.

Violets were very scarce; we used to search very carefully for them
every morning, round by the orchard hedge, and Sarah used to carry a
stick in her hand to beat away the nettles; for very frequently the
hens left their eggs among the nettles. If we could find eggs and
violets too, what happy children we were!

Every day I used to fill my basket with flowers, and for a long time
I liked one pretty flower as well as another pretty flower, but Sarah
was much wiser than me, and she taught me which to prefer.

Grandmamma's violets were certainly best of all, but they never went
in the basket, being carried home, almost flower by flower, as soon as
they were found; therefore blue-bells might be said to be the best,
for the cowslips were all withered and gone, before I learned the true
value of flowers. The best blue-bells were those tinged with red; some
were so very red, that we called them red blue-bells, and these Sarah
prized very highly indeed. Daffodils were so very plentiful, they
were not thought worth gathering, unless they were double ones, and
butter-cups I found were very poor flowers indeed, yet I would pick
one now and then, because I knew they were the very same flowers that
had delighted me so in the journey; for my papa had told me they were.

I was very careful to love best the flowers which Sarah praised most,
yet sometimes, I confess, I have even picked a daisy, though I knew it
was the very worst flower of all, because it reminded me of London,
and the Drapers' garden; for, happy as I was at grandmamma's, I could
not help sometimes thinking of my papa and mamma, and then I used to
tell my sister all about London; how the houses stood all close to
each other; what a pretty noise the coaches made; and what a many
people there were in the streets. After we had been talking on these
subjects, we generally used to go into the old wood-house, and play at
being in London. We used to set up bits of wood for houses; our two
dolls we called papa and mamma; in one corner we made a little garden
with grass and daisies, and that was to be the Drapers' garden. I
would not have any other flowers here than daisies, because no other
grew among the grass in the real Drapers' garden. Before the time of
hay-making came, i