“At last we reached a large farm-house at Bramley; another mile remained to the Green, but that was impassable. Nobody thinks of riding at Bramley.... We must walk, but the appearance of gay crowds of rustics, all passing along one path, gave assurance that this time we should not lose our way.... Cross two fields more and up a quiet lane and we are at the Maying, announced afar off by the merry sound of music and the merrier clatter of childish voices. Here we are at the Green, a little turfy spot where three roads meet, close, shut in by hedgerows, with a pretty white cottage and its long slip of a garden at one angle.... In the midst grows a superb horse-chestnut in the full glory of its flowery pyramids, and from the trunk of this chestnut the May-houses commence. They are covered alleys built of green boughs, decorated with garlands and great bunches of flowers—the gayest that blow—lilacs, guelder roses, peonies, tulips, stocks—hanging down like chandeliers among the dancers; for of dancers, gay, dark-eyed young girls in straw bonnets and white gowns, and their lovers in their Sunday attire, the May-houses were full. The girls had mostly the look of extreme youth, and danced well and quietly like ladies—too much so.... Outside was the fun. It is the outside, the upper gallery of the world that has that good thing. There were children laughing, eating, trying to cheat and being cheated round an ancient and practised vender of oranges and ginger-bread; and on the other side of the tree lay a merry group of old men.... That group would have suited Teniers; it smoked and drank a little, but it laughed a great deal more. There were ... young mothers strolling about with infants in their arms, and ragged boys peeping through the boughs at the dancers, and the bright sun shining gloriously on all this innocent happiness. Oh, what a pretty sight it was—worth losing our way for!” We hear of another Maying which took place in a neighbouring hamlet of “Our Village,” which Miss Mitford calls Whitley Wood, into which narrative is interwoven an amusing account of the love affairs of mine host of the “Rose”—the village inn hard by the Mitfords’ cottage. “Landlord Sims, the master of the revels,” writes Miss Mitford, “and our very good neighbour, is a portly, bustling man of five-and-forty or thereabout, with a hale, jovial visage, a merry eye, a pleasant smile and a general air of good-fellowship.... There is not a better companion or a more judicious listener in the county.... No one can wonder at Master Sim’s popularity.