This, at the time it was painted, was the only Post Office of which Bowler's Green, near Haslemere, boasted, and from its appearance it might well have served during the reigns of several of Her Majesty's predecessors. It speaks much for the absence of ill-disposed persons in the neighbourhood that letters were for so long entrusted to its care, as it seems far removed from the days of the scarlet funnel which probably now replaces it. I opine that the young gentleman whom we saw a short while ago engaged in bubble-blowing has been entrusted here with the posting of a letter. [Illustration: 31. THE CHILDREN'S MAYPOLE _From the Water-colour in the possession of Mrs. Dobson._ Painted 1886.] May Day still lingers in some parts of the country, for only last year in an out-of-the-way lane in Northamptonshire the writer encountered a band of children decked in flowers, and their best frocks and ribbons, singing an old May ditty. But lovers have long ago ceased to plant trees before their mistresses' doors, and to dance with them afterwards round the maypole on the village green, which we too are old enough to remember in Leicestershire. The ceremony that Mrs. Allingham's children are taking a part in was doubtless the recognition by a poet of his illustrious predecessor Spenser's exhortation:-- Youths folke now flocken in everywhere To gather May baskets, and smelling briere; And home they hasten, the postes to dight With hawthorne buds, and sweet eglantine, And girlonds of roses, and soppes in wine. The scene is laid in the woods at Witley. CHAPTER VI THE WOODS, THE LANES, AND THE FIELDS I've been dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedgerows of England; They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden; Thinking of lanes and of fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet.