Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net MARY'S MEADOW AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING. SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET. NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO. [Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.] * * * * * CONTENTS. MARY'S MEADOW LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN GARDEN LORE SUNFLOWERS AND A RUSHLIGHT DANDELION CLOCKS THE TRINITY FLOWER LADDERS TO HEAVEN * * * * * MARY'S MEADOW. PREFACE. "MARY'S MEADOW" first appeared in the numbers of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ from November 1883 to March 1884. It was the last serial story which Mrs. EWING wrote, and I believe the subject of it arose from the fact that in 1883, after having spent several years in moving from place to place, she went to live at Villa Ponente, Taunton, where she had a settled home with a garden, and was able to revert to the practical cultivation of flowers, which had been one of the favourite pursuits of her girlhood. The Game of the Earthly Paradise was received with great delight by the readers of the story; one family of children adopted the word "Mary-meadowing" to describe the work which they did towards beautifying hedges and bare places; and my sister received many letters of inquiry about the various plants mentioned in her tale. These she answered in the correspondence columns of the Magazine, and in July 1884 it was suggested that a "Parkinson Society" should be formed, whose objects were "to search out and cultivate old garden flowers which have become scarce; to exchange seeds and plants; to plant waste places with hardy flowers; to circulate books on gardening amongst the Members;" and further, "to try to prevent the extermination of rare wild flowers, as well as of garden treasures." Reports of the Society, with correspondence on the exchanges of plants and books, and quaint local names of flowers, were given in the Magazine until it was brought to a close after Mrs. EWING'S death; but I am glad to say that the Society existed for some years under the management of the founder, Miss ALICE SARGANT, and when she was obliged to relinquish the work it was merged in the "Selborne Society," which aims at the preservation of rare species of animals as well as plants.