This sacred ceremony of these ladies doth remind me (but without making comparison ’twixt the two) of a heathen one, yet goodly withal, which was performed at Rome at the period of the Punic Wars, as we do read in the Historian Livy.[24*] ’Twas a solemn progress and procession made by three times nine, which is twenty-seven, young and pretty Roman maids, all of them virgins, clad in longish frocks, of which history doth not however tell us the colours. These dainty maids, their solemn march and procession completed, did then make halt at a certain spot, where they proceeded to dance a measure before the assembled people, passing from hand to hand a cord or ribband, ranged all in order one after other, and stepping a round, accommodating the motion and twinkling of their feet to the cadence of the tune and the song they sang the while. It was a right pretty sight to see, no less for the beauty of the maids than for their sweet grace, their dainty way of dancing and the adroit tripping of their feet, the which is one of the chiefest charms of a maid, when she is skilled to move and guide the same daintily and well. I have oft pictured to myself the measure they did so dance; and it hath brought to my mind one I have seen performed in my young days by the girls of mine own countryside, called the “garter.” In this, the village girls, giving and taking the garter from hand to hand, would pass and re-pass these above their heads, then entangle and interlace the same between their legs, leaping nimbly over them, then unwinding them and slipping free with little, dainty bounds,—all this while keeping rank one after other, without once losing cadence with the song or instrument of music which led the measure, in such wise that the thing was a mighty pretty thing to see. For the little leaps and bounds they gave, the interlacing and slipping free again, the wielding of the garter and the graceful carriage of the girls, did all provoke so dainty a smack of naughtiness, as that I do marvel much the said dance hath never been practised at Court in these days of ours. Pleasant ’tis to see the dainty drawers, and the fine leg freely exhibited in this dance, and which lass hath the best fitting shoe and the most alluring mien. But truly it can be better appreciated by the eye than described in words.