Magnum Bonum

imes a me

n us from

h April, M

eaming a

April, May

idens, bird

erings fro

f the Flow

and Jock had set off to school, and poor little Armine, who firmly believed that his rejection was in consequence of his confusion between os, ossis, and os, oris, and was very sore about it, had gone with Allen and Barbara to se

mother! mammie, d

e-wh

d. Get her bo

, you boy? ju

all that!

ntreated Armine; "you nev

yield, as Babie danced about with her bonnet, Armine tug

n't tell her," said Armine. "Bandage her

stn't see," cried

r crossly. "I'm much too busy, and

en, laughing; "mother

desert you, my dear," s

the handkerchief with which Allen was binding h

ong, Mot

g to land

h accustomed that it prevented her from expecting a fairy-l

aged the bonnet. She only indignantly picked up the cap which had fallen from the sofa to the floor, and dispo

r, and alternately stopping each other's mouths when any premature disclosure was apprehended, pau

te and felt her feet on the road and remonstrated, but she was coaxed on and through anothe

e an eag

she beheld what they might

wind-flower, purple orchis spikes springing from black-spotted leaves, and deep-grey crested dog-violets. On one side was a perfect grove of the broad-leaved, waxen-belled Solomon's seal, sloping down to moister ground where was a golden river of king-cups, and above was a long glade betwe

!" sai

ildren. "Oh mammy, mammy

e was pouring out his song close by; she listened b

d Allen, "it is

beautiful. It is what papa always

rs up there?" asked Babie. "I don

down among the primroses and spread her

ything 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 gather

Allen and his mother looked at each other in amused dismay, then at their watches. It was twelv

athered up their armloads of flowers. "You na

It has done you good," said Allen solicitous

nothing while I have a place li

e 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

believe here, it w

in the wood, and to take comfort that it was unprecedented that their mother and big brother should be with

" exclaimed Janet, somewhat s

s, cuckoo-flowers, and anemones, besides blue-bells, orchises, primroses, &c. "My poor child, it was a

he had developed her taste for "long purples" as Hamlet's widow. At least so it struck Mother Carey, who immediately became conscious that her bon

d!" she said, refreshed by her delightsom

your absence," said her sister

, where's the great Dutch bowl-and the little Salviati?

wood-sorrel," said the ot

t is to see spring for the first time. Ah! that's right,

ice clean chintz, children," exclaimed the aunt,

of school intelligence as to work and play, tumbling over one another, from Bobus and Jock both at once, in the midst of

d said, "I beg your pa

now whether he shall order this paper for the drawing-room. It cannot be put up yet, of course; but Smith ha

hite paper, slightly tinted, and seemed intended to repres

bus; and Caroline herself, meeting All

s they cr

rms they c

ght you were going to paint i

d Allen; "sha'n

ther, choking down a giggle. "Those plaster

d 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 su

usband, "Well, what is to become of those poor things I do not know. One

aid the Colonel

n any child, because you can't bid her mind what she is about, and not talk nonsense. When she leaves her house in such a state, and no one but that poor girl to see to anything, and comes home all over mud, raving about fairyland, and g

onsolingly, "Well, well, you know all these country

lse. She would have, she thought, done well enough alone with her children, and scrambled into her new home; but the directions, however needful, seemed to be continually insulting her understanding. When she was advised as to the best b

the Colonel always made her thoughts wander as from a dull sermon; and this was more unlucky in his case than in his wife's-for Ellen used such reiterations that there wa

comfortable and roomy, with everything kept in perfect order. Caroline could not quite think the furniture worthy of it, but that was not for want of the desire to do everything handsomely and fashionably. Moreover, in spite of the schoolroom and nurseryful of children, marvels of needlework and kni

rs, and render Kencroft almost a show place. The meadow lay behind the house, and a gravel walk leading along its shaded border opened into the lane about ten yards from the gate of the Pagoda, as Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow and the post office laboured to call it; the Folly, as came so much more naturally to everyone