s not like you to
think you know better than he does about anything. There is one other
subject on which he expects to be humored, and I am careful not to
offend him. He cannot tolerate the idea that he might be supposed to
have yielded to Father the point about which they went to law, in
giving Mary's Meadow to me. He is always lecturing me on
encroachments, and the abuse of privileges, and warning me to be very
strict about trespassers on the path through Mary's Meadow; and now
that the field is mine, nothing will induce him to walk in it without
asking my leave. That is his protest against the decision from which
he meant to appeal.

Though I have not accepted Saxon, he spends most of his time with us.
He likes to come for the night, because he sleeps on the floor of my
room, instead of in a kennel, which must be horrid, I am sure.
Yesterday, the Old Squire said, "One of these fine days, when Master
Saxon does not come home till morning, he'll find a big mastiff in his
kennel, and will have to seek a home for himself where he can."

Chris has been rather whimsical lately. Father says Lady Catherine
spoils him. One day he came to me looking very peevish, and said,
"Mary, if a hedgehog should come and live in one of your hedges,
Michael says he would be yours, he's sure. If Michael finds him, will
you give him to me?"

"Yes, Chris; but what do you want with a hedgehog?"

"I want him to sleep by my bed," said Chris. "You have Saxon by your
bed; I want something by mine. I want a hedgehog. I feel discontented
without a hedgehog. I think I might have some thing the matter with my
brain if I didn't get a hedgehog pretty soon. Can I go with Michael
and look for him this afternoon?" and he put his hand to his forehead.

"Chris, Chris!" I said, "you should not be so sly. You're a real
slyboots. Double-stockings and slyboots." And I took him on my lap.

Chris put his arms round my neck, and buried his cheek against mine.

"I won't be sly, Mary," he whispered; and then, hugging me as he hugs
Lady Catherine, he added, "For I do love you; for you are a darling,
and I do really think it always was yours."

"What, Chris?"

"If not," said Chris, "why was it always called MARY'S MEADOW?"

NOTE.--If any readers of "Mary's Meadow" have been as completely
puzzled as the writer was by the title of John Parkinson's old
book, it may interest them to know that the question has been
raised and answered in _Not