Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that had been longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others there were flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were still studded with rose-red buds. The grass was high and full of spotted orchis, and tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost abreast of the lowest boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood embraced in meeting flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all gowned in pink lawn with loose white sleeves, and their faces flushed it may have been with the pink linings to their white bonnets, or with the evening rose in the west, or with I know not what. "Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!" "My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs." "You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a word to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House." "From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great amazement. The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a secret." Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on my lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and I will make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among the grasses like any flower on the bough. Jane: In my opinion that can hurt nobody. Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins. Joyce: She would utter no word though we tripped it for a week. Joscelyn: So long as he keeps to his side of the hedge-- Jennifer: --and we to ours. "Oh, I do love to dance!" cried little Joan. "Man!" they commanded him as one voice, "play and sing to us instantly!" "My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air, but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What will you give me for my song? Wait, now!--I have it. You shall fetch me the ring from the finger of your little mistress, who sits hidden beneath the fountain of her own bright tresses." The milkmaids at these words nodded gayly, and little Joan tip-toed to the Well-House, and slipped the ring from Gillian's finger as lightly as a daisy may be slipped from its fellow on the chain. Then she ran with it to the gate, and Martin held up his little finger, and she put it on, saying: "Now you will keep your promise, honey-sweet singer, and play a dance for a May evening when the blossom blows for happiness on the apple-trees." So Martin Pippin tuned his lute and sang what follows, while the girls floated in ones and twos among the orchard grass: