thought so, too.

"TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTIE--

"_My dear Mother_,--This is to tell you that we have made you
Queen of the Blue Robe, and that your son Christopher is a dwarf,
and we think you'll both be very much pleased when you hear it.
He can do as he likes about having a hump back. When you come
home we shall give faire flowers into your Highnesse hands--that
is if you'll do what I'm going to ask you, for nobody can grow
flowers out of nothing. I want you to write to John--write
straight to him, don't put it in your letter to Father--and tell
him that you have given us leave to have some of the seedlings
out of the frames, and that he's to dig us up a good big clump of
daffodils out of the shrubbery--and we'll divide them fairly, for
Harry is the Honestest Root-gatherer that ever came over to us.
We have turned the whole of our gardens into a _Paradisi in sole
Paradisus terrestris_, if you can construe that; but we must have
something to make a start. He's got no end of bedding things
over--that are doing nothing in the Kitchen Garden and might just
as well be in our Earthly Paradise. And please tell him to keep
us a tiny pinch of seed at the bottom of every paper when he is
sowing the annuals. A little goes a long way, particularly of
poppies. And you might give him a hint to let us have a
flower-pot or two now and then (I'm sure he takes ours if he
finds any of our dead window plants lying about), and that he
needn't be so mighty mean about the good earth in the potting
shed, or the labels either, they're dirt cheap. Mind you write
straight. If only you let John know that the gardens don't
entirely belong to him, you'll see that what's spare from the big
garden would more than set us going; and it shall further
encourage him to accomplish the remainder, who in praying that
your Highnesse may enjoy the heavenly Paradise after the many
years fruition of this earthly,

"Submitteth to be, Your Maiestie's, in all humble devotion,

JOHN PARKINSON,

"King's Apothecary and Herbalist.

"P. S.--It was Mary's idea."

"My _dear_ Arthur!" said I.

"Well, I know it's not very well mixed," said Arthur. "Not half so
well as I intended at first. I meant to write it all in the Parkinson
style. But then, I thought, if I put the part abou