On one side of this charming garden there were a great many bee-hives, and the bees sung so prettily.

Mamma said, “Have you nothing to say to these pretty bees, Louisa?” Then I said to them,

  “How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour,
  And gather honey all the day from every opening flower.”

They had a most beautiful flower-bed to gather it from, quite close under the hives.

I was going to catch one bee, till Sarah told me about their stings, which made me afraid for a long time to go too near their hives; but I went a little nearer, and a little nearer, every day, and, before I came away from grandmamma’s, I grew so bold, I let Will Tasker hold me over the glass windows at the top of the hives, to see them make honey in their own homes.

After seeing the garden, I saw the cows milked, and that was the last sight I saw that day; for while I was telling mamma about the cows, I fell fast asleep, and I suppose I was then put to bed.

The next morning my papa and mamma were gone.  I cried sadly, but was a little comforted at hearing they would return in a month or two, and fetch me home.  I was a foolish little thing then, and did not know how long a month was.  Grandmamma gave me a little basket to gather my flowers in.  I went into the orchard, and before I had half filled my basket, I forgot all my troubles.

The time I passed at my grandmamma’s is always in my mind.  Sometimes I think of the good-natured pied cow, that would let me stroke her, while the dairy-maid was milking her.  Then I fancy myself running after the dairy-maid into the nice clean dairy, and see the pans full of milk and cream.  Then I remember the wood-house; it had once been a large barn, but being grown old, the wood was kept there.  My sister and I used to peep about among the faggots to find the eggs the hens sometimes left there.  Birds’ nests we might not look for.  Grandmamma was very angry once, when Will Tasker brought home a bird’s nest, full of pretty speckled eggs, for me.  She sent him back to the hedge with it again.  She said, the little birds would not sing any more, if their eggs were taken away from them.

A hen, she said, was a hospitable bird, and always laid more eggs than she wanted, on purpose to give her 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.