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, it was very much talked of.  Sarah told me what a merry time it would be, for she remembered every thing which had happened for a year or more.  She told me how nicely we should throw the hay about.  I was very desirous indeed to see the hay made.

To be sure nothing could be more pleasant than the day the orchard was mowed:  the hay smelled so sweet, and we might toss it about as much as ever we pleased; but, dear me, we often wish for things that do not prove so happy as we expected; the hay, which was at first so green, and smelled so sweet, became yellow and dry, and was carried away in a cart to feed the horses; and then, when it was all gone, and there was no more to play with, I looked upon the naked ground, and perceived what we had lost in these few merry days.  Ladies, would you believe it, every flower, blue-bells, daffodils, butter-cups, daisies, all were cut off by the cruel scythe of the mower.  No flower was to be seen at all, except here and there a short solitary daisy, that a week before one would not have looked at.