Mary's Meadow, and Other Tales of Fields and FlowersEwing, Juliana Horatia
General
Mary's Meadow, and Other Tales of Fields and Flowers
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature; Gardening -- Juvenile literature
Margery is sure to be right. She always it. Besides, we looked it out
in Johnson's Dictionary, which we are rather food of, though it is
very heavy to lift. We like the bits out of books, in small print; but
I could not understand the bits to the word _temperament_, and I do
not think Margery could either, though she can understand much more
than I can.
There is a very odd bit to the word _temperamental_, and it is signed
_Brown_; but we do not know if that means our Dr. Brown. This is the bit:
"That _temperamental_ dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may
be collected from spots in our nails, we concede."--_Brown_.
We could not understand it, so we lifted down the other volume (one is
just as heavy as the other), and looked out "Dignotion," and it means
"distinction, distinguishing mark," and then there is the same bit
over again, but at the end is "_Brown's Vulgar Errors_." And we did
not like to ask Dr. Brown if they were his vulgar errors, for fear he
should think us rude. I thought we might perhaps ask him if they were
his errors, and leave out _vulgar_, which is rather a rude word, but
Margery thought it better not, and she is sure to be right. She always
is.
But we should have liked to ask Dr. Brown about it, if it had not been
rude, because we think a good deal of spots on our nails. All we know
about them is that you begin at your thumb, and count on to your
little finger, in this way,
"A Gift, a Beau,
A Friend, a Foe,
A Journey to go."
I like having a Beau, or a Friend; Margery likes a Gift, or a Journey
to go. We neither of us like having Foes.
And it shows that it does come true, because Margery had a white spot
in the middle of her left little finger-nail, just when our father's
old friend wrote to Grandmamma, for one of us to go and pay him a
visit; and Margery went, because she was the elder of the two.
I do not know how I bore parting with her, except with hoping that she
would enjoy herself, for she always had wanted so very much to have a
journey to go. But if she had been at home, so that I could have taken
her advice, I do not think I should have been so silly about the
Sunflowers and the Rushlight.
She says--"You'd have put on your slippers, and had a blanket round
you at least. But, oh, my dear Grace, you always are so rash!"
I did not know I was. I thought rash people were brave; and if I had
been brave, the Rushlight would never have come out of the roof. Still
Margery is sure to be right. I know I am very foolish and lonely
without her.
There are only two of us. Our father, and our mother, and our brother,
all died of fever, nearly five years ago. We shall never see them
again till we go to Paradise, and that is one reason why we wish to
try to be good and never to be naughty, so that we may be sure to see
them again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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