II.
MISTRESS MARY'S GARDEN.
"'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?'
'With silver bells and cockle shells,
And little maids all in a row.'"
Mistress Mary's Garden did grow remarkably well, and it was wonderfully attractive considering the fact that few persons besides herself saw anything but weeds in it.
She did not look in the least a "contrary" Miss Mary, as she stood on a certain flight of broad wooden steps on a sunshiny morning; yet she was undoubtedly having her own way and living her own life in spite of remonstrances from bevies of friends, who saw no shadow of reason or common sense in her sort of gardening. It would have been foolish enough for a young woman with a small living income to cultivate roses or violets or lavender, but this would at least have been poetic, while the arduous
