dingle-bells. I very much suspect the real reason they are dying is
because the cold sea wind caught them last night. Dingle-bells are
delicate. If you had scattered the cockle-shells and cowslips all
about them, the stronger plants would have protected the weaker; but
you see, my girl, you planted the dingle-bells all in a row, and so
the wind caught them nicely."

Again Mary reproached herself for having been contrary and refusing to
listen to her mother's advice; but the Squire's words comforted her,
nevertheless, and made her feel that brother Hobart and the flowers
had really nothing to do with each other.

The weather now began to change, and the cold sea winds blew each
night over Mary's garden. She did not know this, for she was always
lying snugly tucked up in her bed, and the warm morning sun usually
drove away the winds; but her mother knew it, and feared Mary's garden
would suffer.

One day Mary came into the house where her mother was at work and
said, gleefully,

"Papa and my brothers will soon be home now."

"Why do you think so?" asked her mother.

"Because the cockle-shells and cowslips are both fading away and
dying, just as the dingle-bells did, and papa said when they faded and
withered he and the boys would come back to us."

Mary's mother knew that the harsh winds had killed the flowers before