words could now be distinguished, breaking through the primitive quavering melody of 'The Mayers' Song' known to all the country side since the thirteenth century:

"Remember us poor Mayers all.-
And thus do we begin,

To lead our lives in righteousness,
Or else we die in sin.

Here came a pause and the chorus dropped into an uncertain murmur. John Walden heard his garden gates swing back on their hinges, and a shuffling crunch of numerous small feet on the gravel path.

"G'arn, Susie !" cried a shrill boy's voice-"If y'are leadin' us, lead! G'arn!"

A sweet flute-like treble responded to this emphatic adjuration, singing alone, clear and high,

"A branch of May we have brought you
And at your door it stands,

"Tis but a sprout,

But 'tis budded out

By the work of our Lord's hands!"

And with this, a great crown of crimson and white blossoms, set on a tall, gaily-painted pole and adorned with bright coloured ribbons, came nid-nodding down the box-tree alley to the middle of the lawn opposite Walden's study window, where it was quickly straightened up and held in position by the eager hands of some twenty or thirty children, of all sizes and ages, who, surrounding it at its base, turned their faces, full

of shy exultation towards their pastor, still singing, but in more careful time and tune:

"The Heavenly gates are open wide,
Our paths are beaten plain,

And if a man be not too far gone,
He may return again.

The moon shines bright and the stars give light

A little before it is day,

So God bless you all, both great and small,

And send you a merrie May!"

Fo

II

OR a moment or two Walden found himself smitten by so strong a sense of the mere simple sensuous joy of living, that he could do no more than stand looking in silent admiration at the pretty group of expectant young creatures gathered round the Maypole, and huddled, as it were, under its cumbrous crown of dewy blossoms, which showed vividly against the clear sky, while the long streamers of red, white and blue depending from its summit, trailed on the daisy-sprinkled grass at their feet.

Every little face was familiar and dear to him. That awkward lad, grinning from ear to ear, with a particularly fine sprig of flowering hawthorn in his cap, was Dick Styles;certainly a very different individual to Chaucer's knight, Arcite, but resembling him in so far that he had evidently gone into the woods early, moved by the same desire: "I hope that I some green here getten may!" That tiny girl, well to the front, with a clean white frock on and no hat to cover her tangle of golden curls, was Baby Hippolyta,-the last, the very last, of the seemingly endless sprouting olive branches of the sexton, Adam Frost. Why the poor child had been doomed to carry the name of Hippolyta, no one ever knew. When he, Walden, had christened her, he almost doubted whether he had heard the lengthy appellation aright, and ventured to ask the godmother of the occasion to repeat it in a louder voice. Whereupon 'Hip-po-ly-ta' was uttered in such strong tones, so thoroughly well enunciated, that he could no longer mistake it, and the helpless infant, screaming lustily, left the simple English baptismal font burdened with a purely Greek designation. She was, however, always called 'Ipsie' by her playmates, and even her mother and father, who were entirely responsible for her name in the first instance, found it somewhat weighty for daily utterance and gladly adopted the simpler sobriquet, though the elders of the village generally were rather fond of calling her with much solemn unction: Baby Hippolyta,' as though it were elaborate joke. Ipsie was one of the loveliest children in the

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village, and though she was only two-and-a-half years old, she was fully aware of her own charms. She was pushed to the front of the Maypole this morning, merely because she was pretty, and she knew it. That was why she lifted the extreme edge of her short skirt and put it in her mouth, thereby displaying her fat innocent bare legs extensively, and smiled at the Reverend John Walden out of the uplifted corners of her forget-me-not blue eyes. Then there was Bob Keeley, more or less breathless with excitement, having just got back again from Badsworth Hall, his friend the butcher boy having driven him to and from that place 'in a jiffy' as he afterwards described it, and there was a very sparkling, smiling, vivacious little person of about fifteen, in a lilac cotton frock, who wore a wreath of laburnum on her black curls, no other than Kitty Spruce, generally alluded to in the village as 'Bob Keeley's gel';-and standing near Baby Hippolyta, or 'Ipsie,' was the acknowledged young beauty of the place, Susie Prescott, a slip of a lass with a fair Madonna-like face, long chestnut curls and great, dark, soft eyes like pansies filled with dew. Susie had a decided talent for music,-she sang very prettily, and led the village choir, under the guidance of Miss Janet Eden, the schoolmistress. This morning, however, she was risking the duties of conductorship on her own account, and very sweet she looked in her cheap white nunsveiling gown, wearing a bunch of narcissi carelessly set in her hair and carrying a flowering hazel-wand in her hand, with which she beat time for her companions as they followed her bird-like carolling in the 'Mayers' Song.' But just now all singing had ceased, and every one of the children had their round eyes fixed on John Walden with a mingling of timidity, affection and awe that was very winning and pretty to behold. Taking in the whole picture of nature, youth and beauty, as it was set against the pure background of the sky, Walden realised that he was expected to say something,-in fact, he had been called upon to say something every year at this time, but he had never been able to conquer the singular nervousness which always overcame him on such occasions. It is one thing to preach from a pulpit to an assembled congregation who are prepared for orthodoxy and who are ready to listen with more or less patience to the expounding of the same,but it is quite another to speak to a number of girls and boys all full of mirth and mischief, and as ready for a frolic as a herd of young colts in a meadow. Especially when it happens

that most of the girls are pretty, and when, as a clergyman and director of souls, one is conscious that the boys are more or less all in love with the girls,—that one is a bachelor,— getting on in years too;-and that-chiefest of all-it is Maymorning! One may perhaps be conscious of a contraction at the heart, a tightening of the throat,-even a slight mist before the eyes may tease and perplex such an one-who knows? A flash of lost youth may sting the memory,-a boyish craving for love and sympathy may stir the blood, and may make the gravest parson's speech incoherent,—for after all, even a minister of the Divine is but a man.

At any rate the Reverend John found it difficult to begin. The round forget-me-not eyes of Baby Hippolyta stared into his face with relentless persistency,-the velvet pansy-coloured ones of Susie Prescott smiled confidingly up at him with a bewildering youthfulness and unconsciousness of charm; and the mischief-loving small boys and village yokels who stood grouped against the Maypole like rough fairy foresters guarding magic timber, were, with all the rest of the children, hushed into a breathless expectancy, waiting eagerly for 'Passon' to speak. And 'Passon' thereupon began,-in the lamest, feeblest, most paternally orthodox manner:

"My dear children

“ "Hooray! Hooray! Three cheers for 'Passon'! Hooray!" Wild whooping followed, and the Maypole rocked uneasily, and began to slant downward in a drunken fashion, like a convivial giant whom strong wine has made doubtful of his footing.

"Take care, you young rascals!" cried Walden, letting sentiment, orthodoxy and eloquence go to the winds,-"You will have the whole thing down!"

Peals of gay laughter responded, and the nodding mass of bloom was swiftly pulled up and assisted to support its necessary horizontal dignity. But here Baby Hippolyta suddenly created a diversion. Moved perhaps by the consciousness of her own beauty, or by the general excitement around her, she suddenly waved a miniature branch of hawthorn and emitted a piercing yell.

"Passon! Tum 'ere! Passon! Tum 'ere !"

There was no possibility of 'holding forth' after this. A short address on the brevity of life, as being co-equal with the evanescent joys of a Maypole, would hardly serve,-and a fatherly ambition as to the unbecoming attitude of mendi