Luncheon over, the singing of mirthful voices, tuned to a kind of village roundelay, attracted the company, now fed to repletion, towards the lawn at the back of the house, and cries of delight were raised as the May-pole came into view, I myself joining in the universal applause, for I had not expected to see anything half so picturesque and pretty. The pole was surrounded by a double ring of small children,—children so beautiful in face and dainty in form, that they might very well have been taken for little fairies from some enchanted woodland. The boys were clad as tiny foresters in doublets of green, with pink caps on their curly heads,—the girls were in white, with their hair flowing loosely over their shoulders, and wreaths of May-blossom crowning their brows. As soon as the guests
