as silly, and yet I could not bear
the thought of having to satisfy everybody's curiosity, and describe
that scene in Mary's Meadow, which had wounded me so bitterly, and
explain why I had not told of it before.

I cried, too, for another reason. Mary's Meadow had been dear to us
all, ever since I could remember. It was always our favorite field. We
had coaxed our nurses there, when we could induce them to leave the
high road, or when, luckily for us, on account of an epidemic, or for
some reason or another, they were forbidden to go gossiping into the
town. We had "pretended" fairies in the nooks of the delightfully
neglected hedges, and we had found fairy-rings to prove our
pretendings true. We went there for flowers; we went there for
mushrooms and puff-balls; we went there to hear the nightingale. What
cowslip balls, and what cowslip tea-parties it had afforded us. It is
fair to the Old Squire to say that we were sad trespassers, before he
and Father quarrelled and went to law. For Mary's Meadow was a field
with every quality to recommend it to childish affections.

And now I was banished from it, not only by the quarrel, of which we
had really not heard much, or realised it as fully, but by my own
bitter memories. I cried afresh to think I should never go again to
the corner where I always found the earliest violets; and then I cried
to think that the nightingale would soon be back, and how that very
morning, when I opened my window, I had heard the cuckoo, and could
tell that he was calling from just about Mary's Meadow.

I cried my eyes into such a state, that I was obliged to turn my
attention to making them fit to be seen; and I had spent quite half an
hour in bathing them and breathing on my handkerchief, and dabbing
them, which is more soothing, when I heard Mother calling me. I
winked hard, drew a few long breaths, rubbed my cheeks, which were so
white they showed up my red eyes, and ran downstairs. Mother was
coming to meet me. She said--"Where is Christopher?"

It startled me. I said, "He was with me in the garden, about--oh,
about an hour ago; have you lost him? I'll go and look for him."

And I snatched up a garden hat, which shaded my swollen eyelids, and
ran out. I could not find him anywhere, and becoming frightened, I ran
down the drive, calling him as I went, and through the gate, and out
into the road.

A few yards farther on I met him.

That child is most extraordinary. One minute he looks