312 POPULAR TALES OF FLOWERS 
in hand, young men and village maidens formed a circle 
around her, and, with smiling faces, timed their feet to 
the music of an old-fashioned country' dance. 
At a distance stood the wealthy squire, surrounded by 
his family, his face beaming with smiles, as he gazed upon 
the merry group before him, and pointed proudly to his 
youngest daughter, who sat crowned the Queen of May. 
For ages past had some high-born daughter of the Hall 
laid aside her dignity for the day, and condescended to 
preside over their May games. 
Many a proud beauty who now slept in the dark vault 
beneath the chancel pavement, on which shone the morn- 
ing sun, had, in the rose-bloom of youth and loveliness, 
left her old ancestral hearth and mounted the flowery 
throne on the village green, to do reverence to May; but 
never before had there stepped out, from that long gallery 
of departed beauties, one lovelier than she who now sat 
the crowned queen of the month of flowers. 
Her face recalled the immortal sculpture of ancient 
Greece; and you might have fancied, but for the pearly 
flush which softened into the peach-like velvetness of her 
cheeks, and the smile which ever played about the parted 
rosebuds of her lips, that her head and neck had been 
chiseled from the whitest marble, with just such a warmth 
thrown over it as sometimes flushes the pearl-white blos- 
soms of the Hawthorn. 
The silken flow of her nut - brown hair was parted 
Madonna-wise in front, and beautifully broken by the 
damask coronet of wild roses, which here and there went 
rounding off, or was half buried in the dark background 
of her tresses, like a bird partly hidden among the blos- 
soms amid which it sings ; a mild, tender light played 
about the softened sunshine of her hazel eyes, throwing 
a brightness over the heaven from which they beamed, 
and a happiness over every countenance which reflected 
back the smiling sweetness of their cheering lustre, like 
the sunshine streaming upon a bed of open primroses, 
and causing the pale yellow of the modest flowers to 
“give back gold for gold.” 
Around the ivory pillar of her neck hung a band of 
rosebuds, beautifully twisted into a silken riband ; the 
warm marble of her arms was ornamented with bracelets 
