“Are there any flowers that look like bells?” she inquired.
“Lilies o’ th’ valley does,” he answered, digging away with the trowel, “an’ there’s Canterbury bells, an’ campanulas.”
“Let’s plant some,” said Mary.
“There’s lilies o’ th, valley here already; I saw ’em. They’ll have growed too close an’ we’ll have to separate ’em, but there’s plenty. Th’ other ones takes two years to bloom from seed, but I can bring you some bits o’ plants from our cottage garden. Why does tha’ want ’em?”
Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India and of how she had hated them and of their calling her “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary.”
“They used to dance round and sing at me. They sang—
‘Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.’
I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers like silver bells.”
She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the earth.
“I wasn’t as contrary as they were.”