1827.] .Our Maying. 157 



find her shop, her journeymen, and her eight children (six unruly obstre- 

 perous pickles of boys, and two tomboys of girls), rather more than a lone 

 woman could manage, and to sigh for a help-mate to ease her of her cares, 

 collect the boys at night, see the girls to school of a morning, break the 

 large imps of running away to revels and fairs, and the smaller fry of 

 birds'-nesting arid orchard-robbing, and bear a part in the lectures and chas- 

 tisements, which she deemed necessary to preserve the young rebels from 

 the bad end which she predicted to them twenty times a day. Master 

 Brown was the coadjutor on whom she had inwardly pitched ; and; 

 accordingly, she threw out broad hints to that effect, every lime she en- 

 countered him, which, in the course of her search for boys and girls, who 

 were sure to be missing at school-time and bed-time, happened pretty 

 often ; and Mr. Brown was far too gallant and too much in the habit of 

 assenting to listen unmoved ; for really the widow was a fine tall, pomely 

 woman ; and the whispers, and smiles, and hand-pressings, when they hap- 

 pened to meet, were becoming very tender; and his admonitions and head- 

 shakings, addressed to the young crew (who, nevertheless, all liked him) 

 quite fatherly. This was his down-street flame. 



The rival lady was Miss Lydia Day, the carpenter's sister, a slim, 

 upright maiden, not remarkable for beauty, and not quite so young as she 

 had been, who, on inheriting a small annuity from the mistress with whom 

 she had spent the best of her days, retired to her native village to live on 

 her means. A genteel, demure, quiet personage, was Miss Lydia Day; 

 much addicted to snuif and green tea, and not averse from a little gentle 

 scandal for the rest, a good sort of woman, and un tres-bon parti for 

 Master Brown, who seemed to consider it a profitable speculation, and 

 made love to her whenever she happened to come into his head, which, it 

 must be confessed, was hardly so often as her merits and her annuity 

 deserved. Loveless as he was, he had no lack of encouragement to com- 

 plain of for she *' to hear would seriously incline," and put on her best 

 silk, and her best simper, and lighted up her faded complexion into some- 

 thing approaching to a blush, whenever he came to visit her. And this 

 was Master Brown's up -street love. 



So stood affairs at the Rose when the day of the Maying arrived ; and 

 the double flirtation, which, however dexterously managed, must havo 

 been, sometimes, one would think, rather inconvenient to the enamorato, 

 proved on this occasion extremely useful. Both the fair ladies contributed 

 her aid to the festival ; Miss Lydia by tying up sentimental garlands for 

 the May-house, and scolding the carpenters into diligence in the erection 

 of the booths ; the widow by giving her whole bevy of boys and girls a 

 holiday, and turning them loose on the neighbourhood to collect flowers as 

 they could. Very useful auxiliaries were these light foragers; they 

 scoured the country far and near irresistible mendicants ! pardonable 

 thieves ! coming to no harm, poor children, except that little George got a 

 black eye in tumbling from the top of an acacia tree at the park, and that 

 Sam (he's a sad pickle is Sam !) narrowly escaped a horse-whipping from 

 the head gardener at the hall, who detected a bonnet of his new rhodo- 

 dendron, the only plant in the county, forming the very crown and centre 

 of the May-pole. Little harm did they do, poor children, with all their 

 pilfery ; and when they returned, covered with their flowery loads, like the 

 May-day figure called " Jack of the Green," they, worked at the gar- 

 lands and the May-houses, as none but children ever do work, putting all 

 their young life and their untiring spirit of noise and motion into their 



