As he gazed there appeared before him paths of grass, green as emeralds and sparkling with dew, and bordered on each side with shells that glowed like mother-o'-pearl. Flowers, flowers everywhere, Canterbury bells, and sunflowers, roses, lilies and lavender. Fruit trees of gold and silver glittering in the sunshine, and behind, great dark leafy trees inviting to shade and coolth. Fountains splashing, and birds singing. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he must be dreaming.
Then he turned—and there, standing on the Palace steps, was the Princess. No veil covered her face now. There she stood in all her glorious golden beauty—smiling, radiant, as her name.
"You have your garden at last," she said.
Now this story might have been written about any garden, yours or mine. For the honey bee still helps to grow the Canterbury bells, and the birds still help to scatter seeds, and people still line their paths with cockle shells, and sunflowers are still called "fair maids" in the country. As for the Princess Mary Radiant—why, it's only in the sunshine that the bells look like silver, and the cockle-shells like mother-o'-pearl, and it's only to the sun that the sunflowers turn their heads every day … and we all know the sun can be "contrary" enough!
JACK AND JILL
"When the well is dry, they know the worth of water"
Jack and Jill
Went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.
"Oh dear, how I hate the rain," said Jack to Jill, as they stood at the window watching the drops trickling down the window-pane. "We can't do anything really nice when it is raining. I wish someone would take all the rain away so that we could have nothing but fine days."
I have heard Jacks and Jills say much the same things nowadays! But this particular Jack and Jill do not live nowadays at all. They lived a very long time ago, in a far-off country. So long ago, and so far off, that witches were still alive, and one of them actually lived in their own village!