Happy as I was, however, with some such volume as this, a pound or two of chocolates, and my rabbit Isaiah, or to settle down for a long summer afternoon with the Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer, I was not averse from an occasional ramble in the company of my father, or even from exercise of a more vehement order with younger and suitable comrades. The chief of these latter was Emily Smith, the granddaughter of Mrs. Emily Smith, my mother’s aunt, a gentle child, who was unfortunately an albino, but of a deeply religious and sympathetic nature. A year or two older than myself, she lived with her grandmother at New Cross, and in her company and that of some of her school companions, I played several health-giving and mirthful games. One of our favourites, I remember, was Hide and Go Seek, combining both physical and mental exertion; and another, of which we were hardly less fond, was known as Nuts in May. For the purposes of this latter game those who proposed to take part would first form themselves into two equal groups, the members of each moiety then standing side by side, facing the same way and holding each other’s hands. The two groups would then take up positions, each opposite each, in joyous anticipation, and so arranged as to secure a space between them sufficient for an alternating advance and retreat. By a previous arrangement one of the two sides would then approximate itself to the other, singing in unison and to an established melody, the following humorously incongruous lines. Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May, Here we go gathering nuts in May On a cold and frosty morning. That we were not in fact doing so was of course obvious. But the innocent laughter that the words always provoked in us was quite sufficient, in the opinion of myself and my comrades, to rob them of any semblance of deliberate untruthfulness. It would then become the turn of the previously silent and stationary players to advance singing a second stanza, in which they would merrily inquire which of their number was to be chosen as symbolic of these nuts in May. To them in reply the first group would designate a member of the second, whereupon the second group would once more advance with the very pertinent query:— _Whom will you send to fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away, fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away, fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away_, _Whom will you send to fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away_, _On a cold and frosty morning_?