Grandmamma was very glad to see me, and she was very sorry that I did not remember her, though I had been so fond of her when she was in town but a few months before.  I was quite ashamed of my bad memory.  My sister Sarah shewed me all the beautiful places about grandmamma’s house.  She first took me into the farm-yard, and I peeped into the barn; there I saw a man thrashing, and as he beat the corn with his flail, he made such a dreadful noise that I was frightened and ran away:  my sister persuaded me to return; she said Will Tasker was very good-natured:  then I went back, and peeped at him again; but as I could not reconcile myself to the sound of his flail, or the sight of his black beard, we proceeded to see the rest of the farm-yard.

There was no end to the curiosities that Sarah had to shew me.  There was the pond where the ducks were swimming, and the little wooden houses where the hens slept at night.  The hens were feeding all over the yard, and the prettiest little chickens, they were feeding too, and little yellow ducklings that had a hen for their mamma.  She was so frightened if they went near the water.  Grandmamma says a hen is not esteemed a very wise bird.

We went out of the farm-yard into the orchard.  O what a sweet place grandmamma’s orchard is!  There were pear-trees, and apple-trees, and cherry-trees, all in blossom.  These blossoms were the prettiest flowers that ever were seen, and among the grass under the trees there grew butter-cups, and cowslips, and daffodils, and blue-bells.  Sarah told me all their names, and she said I might pick as many of them as ever I pleased.

I filled my lap with flowers, I filled my bosom with flowers, and I carried as many flowers as I could in both my hands; but as I was going into the parlour to shew them to my mamma, I stumbled over a threshold which was placed across the parlour, and down I fell with all my treasure.

Nothing could have so well pacified me for the misfortune of my fallen flowers, as the sight of a delicious syllabub which happened at that moment to be brought in.  Grandmamma said it was a present from the red cow to me because it was my birthday; and then because it was the first of May, she ordered the syllabub to be placed under the May-bush that grew before the parlour door, and when we were seated on the grass round it, she helped me the very first to a large glass full of the syllabub, and wished me many happy returns of that day, and then she said I was myself the sweetest little May-blossom in the orchard.

After the syllabub there was the garden to see, and a most beautiful garden it was;—­long and narrow, a straight gravel walk down the middle of it, at the end of the gravel walk there was a green arbour with a bench under it.

There were rows of cabbages and radishes, and peas and beans.  I was delighted to see them, for I never saw so much as a cabbage growing out of the ground before.