Mother Grey's Apples

At the time I was a little girl,—you will not, I am sure, be ungallant enough to inquire when that was, when I tell you I am now a woman, —I remember that the nursery maid, whose duty it was to wait upon myself and sisters, invariably said, if she found us out of temper —"So, so! young ladies, you are in the sulks, eh? Well, sulk away; you'll be like 'Mother Grey's apples,' you'll be sure to come round again." We often inquired, on the return of fine weather, who Mother Grey was, and what were the peculiar circumstances of the apples coming round? —questions, however, which were always evaded.…