Note c — NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

In 1871, in one of my walks at Abingdon, (see Fors, Letters IV. and VI.,) I saw some ragged children playing by the roadside on the bank of a ditch, and gathering what buttercups they could find. Watching them a little while, I at last asked what they were doing. ‘This is my garden,’ answered a little girl about nine years old. ‘Well, but gardens ought to be of use; this is only full of buttercups. Why don’t you plant some strawberries in it?’ ‘I have none to plant.’ ‘If you had a little garden of your own, and some to plant, would you take care of them?’ ‘That I would.’ Thereupon I told her to come and ask for me at the Crown and Thistle, and with my good landlady Mrs. Wonnacott’s help, rented a tiny piece of ground for her. Her father and mother have since died; and her brothers and sisters (four, in all,) are in the Union, at Abingdon. I did not like to let this child go there too; so I’ve sent her to learn shepherding at a kindly shepherd’s; close to Arundel, on the farm of the friend whose son (with perhaps a little help from his sister) took me out foxhunting; and examined the snail-shells for me. This ten pounds is for her board, etc., till she can be made useful.