Peter Joostens ceased as they came behind a house upon a great by-road. And now the travelers listened no longer, for they were resolved to be present, and see all the gayety which offered itself to their gaze. All the houses in the village were adorned with green boughs, bound together with garlands of white and many-colored flowers, and between these, over the heads of the spectators, hung every where festoons, with small lamps and with large red letters. Here and there stood a stately May-pole, with hundreds of little flags glittering with tinsel, and adorned with garlands of bird’s-eggs and pieces of glass. Along the sides of the way the boys and girls had laid wreaths of flowers upon silver-white sand, and bound them together at regular distances, showing the alternating initials J. and R. for Jan and Rosa, the invention of the schoolmaster. Amongst all this ornament thronged a swarm of spectators from the neighboring villages to witness this extraordinary wedding. The young travelers went from one group to another, and listened to what the people said. But before the procession, which came over the fields, arrived at the village, they hastened to the church, and placed themselves in front of it on a mound, so that they might overlook the whole. They beheld the procession with a feeling almost bordering on veneration . . . and it really was so beautiful and touching that the heart of the younger one beat with poetic rapture. More than sixty young girls from five to ten years of age, came clad in white, and with childhood’s enchanting smile, like little bright clouds floating through the azure heaven. Upon their free locks, hanging around their fresh countenances, rested garlands of monthly roses, which seemed to contend in beauty with the vermeil lips of the children. “It is like a saga of Andersen’s,” said the younger of the companions; “the sylphs have quitted the bosoms of the flowers. Innocence and simplicity, youth and joy . . . what an enchanting picture!” “Ah, ah!” said the other, “there come the peonies! and Zanna Joostens goes first.” But the younger one was too much affected to notice this unpoetic speech. He gazed with delight on the taller maidens, who in full splendor, beaming with life and health, followed the lesser ones. What a train of full-grown young women in snow-white lace caps! How their blushes added to the sweetness of their countenances! How enchanting was the modest smile about their lips, resembling the gentle curling of the waters which the zephyr on a summer’s evening produces on the surface of an inland lake.