"MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 194, 15 August 1907, Page 2

"MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY."

How many nurses, mothers, and children, one wonders, know the origin ol " Mary, Mary, quite contrary " ?

Mary was Queen Mary Tudor, whose religious contrariness to her father, brother and sister was obvious. The garden was the Church oi England, the silver bells were the restored sacring-bells at Mass, the cockle-shells the emblems of revived pilgrimages to holy places, and the " pretty maids " the nuns whom she reinstated in their convents. GOOD AT THE PRICE. The economical friend had decided that he really must give a present to the bridegroom that was to be, and he accordingly wrote to an acquaintance in the trade, asking him to do tne best he could for him. With a view to saving postage, on the arrival of the parcel he redirected it immediately to the oiiddlng Benedict, and the laiter's confidence in the generosity of his friend was a liftle shaken when, on opening it, he tound it accompanied by this note: —"Dear Jack, —I don't know how this will suit. I don't think much bf it myself, but it is the best we can do for half-a-crown."