mother herself. There is no charm perhaps equal to that of a primrose bank on a sunny day in spring, sight, sound, scent all alike exquisite. It comes with a new and fresh delight even to those to whom this is an annual experience, and to those who never saw the like before it gives, like the first sight of the sea or of a snowy mountain, a sensation never to be forgotten. Fret, fatigue, anxiety, sorrow all passed away like dreams in that sweet atmosphere. Carey, like one of her children, absolutely forgot everything in the charm and wonder of the scene, in the pure, delicate unimaginable odour of the primroses, in debating with Allen whether (cockneys that they were) it could be a nightingale “singing by day when every goose is cackling,” in listening to the marvellous note, only pausing to be answered from further depths, in the beauty of the whole, and in the individual charm of every flower, each heavily-laden arch of dark blue-bells with their curling tips, so infinitely more graceful than their pampered sister, the hyacinth of the window-glass, of each pure delicate anemone she gathered, with its winged stem, of the smiling primrose of that inimitable tint it only wears in its own woodland nest; and when Allen lighted on a bed of wood-sorrel, with its scarlet stems, lovely trefoil leaves, and purple striped blossoms like insect’s wings, she absolutely held her breath in an enthusiasm of reverent admiration. No one can tell the happiness of those four, only slightly diminished by Armine’s getting bogged on his way to the golden river of king-cups, and his mother in going after him, till Allen from an adjacent stump pulled them out, their feet deeply laden with mud.
They had only just emerged when the strokes of a great bell came pealing up from the town below; Allen and his mother looked at each other in amused dismay, then at their watches. It was twelve o’clock! Two hours had passed like as many minutes, and the boys would be coming home to dinner.
“Ah! well, we must go,” said Carey, as they gathered up their armloads of flowers. “You naughty children to make me forget everything.”
“You are not sorry you came though, mother. It has done you good,” said Allen solicitously. He was the most affectionate of them all.
“Sorry! I feel as if I cared for nothing while I have a place like that to drink up delight in.”
With which they tried to make their way back to the path again, but it was not immediately to be found; and their progress was further impeded by a wood-pigeon dwelling impressively on the notes “Take two cows, Taffy; Taffy take TWO!” and then dashing out, flapping and grey, in their faces, rather to Barbara’s alarm, and then by Armine’s stumbling on his first bird’s nest, a wren’s in the moss of an old stump, where the tiny bird unadvisedly flew out of her leafy hole full before their eyes. That was a marvel of marvels, a delight equal to that felt by any explorer the world has seen. Armine and Barbara, who lived in one perpetual fairy tale, were saying to one another that
“One needn’t make believe here, it was every bit real.”
“And more;” added the other little happy voice. Barbara did however begin to think of the numerous children in the wood, and to take comfort that it was unprecedented that their mother and big brother should be with them, but they found the park palings at last, and then a little wicket gate, where they were very near home.
“Mother, where have you been?” exclaimed Janet, somewhat suddenly emerging from the door.
“In Tom Tiddler’s ground, picking up gold and silver,” said Carey, pointing to the armsful of king-cups, cuckoo-flowers, and anemones, besides blue-bells, orchises, primroses, &c. “My poor child, it was a great shame to leave you, but they got me into the enchanted land and I forgot all about everything.”
“I think so,” said a gravely kind voice, and Caroline was aware of Ellen’s eye looking at her as the Court Queen might have looked at Ophelia if she had developed her taste for “long purples” as Hamlet’s widow. At least so it struck Mother Carey, who immediately became conscious that her bonnet was awry, having been half pulled off by a bramble, that her ankles were marked by the bog, and that bits of green were sticking all over her.
“Have you been helping Janet? Oh, how kind!” she said, refreshed by her delightsome morning into putting a bright face on it.
“We have done all we could in your absence,” said her sister-in-law, in a reproachful voice.
“Thank you; I’m sure it is very good of you. Janet—Janet, where’s the great Dutch bowl—and the little Salviati? Nothing else is worthy of this dear little fairy thing.”
“What is it? Just common wood-sorrel,” said the other lady, in utter amaze.
“Ah, Ellen, you think me demented. You little know what it is to see spring for the first time. Ah! that’s right, Janet. Now, Babie, we’ll make a little bit of fairy-land—”
“Don’t put all those littering flowers on that nice clean chintz, children,” exclaimed the aunt, as though all her work were about to be undone.
And then a trampling of boy’s boots being heard and shouts of “Mother,” Carey darted out into the hall to hear fragments of school intelligence as to work and play, tumbling over one another, from Bobus and Jock both at once, in the midst of which Mrs. Robert Brownlow came out with her hat on, and stood, with her air of patient serenity, waiting for an interval.
Caroline looked up, and said, “I beg your pardon, Ellen—what is it?”
“If you can attend a moment,” said she, gravely; “I must be going to my boys’ dinner. But Robert wishes to know whether he shall order this paper for the drawing-room. It cannot be put up yet, of course; but Smith has only a certain quantity of it, and it is so stylish that he said the Colonel had better secure it at once.”
She spread the roll of paper on the hall table. It was a white paper, slightly tinted, and seemed intended to represent coral branches, with starry-looking things at the ends.
“The aquarium at the Zoo,” muttered Bobus; and Caroline herself, meeting Allen’s eye, could not refrain from adding,
“The worms they crawled in,
And the worms they crawled out.”
“Mother!” cried Jock, “I thought you were going to paint it all over with jolly things.”
“Frescoes,” said Allen; “sha’n’t you, mother?”
“If your uncle does not object,” said his mother, choking down a giggle. “Those plaster panels are so tempting for frescoes, Ellen.”
“Frescoes! Why, those are those horrid improper-looking gods and goddesses in clouds and chariots on the ceilings at Belforest,” observed that lady, in a half-puzzled, half-offended tone of voice, that most perilously tickled the fancy of Mother Carey and her brood! and she could hardly command her voice to make answer, “Never fear, Ellen; we are not going to attempt allegorical monstrosities, only to make a bower of green leaves and flowers such as we see round us; though after what we have seen to-day that seems presumptuous enough. Fancy, Janet! golden green trees and porcelain blue ground, all in one bath of sunshine. Such things must be seen to be believed in.”
Poor Mrs. Robert Brownlow! She went home and sighed, as she said to her husband, “Well, what is to become of those poor things I do not know. One would sometimes think poor Caroline was just a little touched in the head.”
“I hope not,” said the Colonel, rather alarmed.
“It may be only affectation,” said his lady, in a consolatory tone. “I am afraid poor Joe did live with a very odd set of people—artists, and all that kind of thing. I am sure
