“The rival lady was Miss Lydia Day, the carpenter’s sister, a slim, upright maiden, not remarkable for beauty and not quite so young as she had been, who, on inheriting a small annuity from the mistress with whom she had spent the best of her days, retired to her native village to live on her means. A genteel, demure, quiet personage was Miss Lydia Day, much addicted to snuff and green tea, and not averse to a little gentle scandal—for the rest a good sort of woman and _un très bon parti_ for Master Sims, who ... made love to her whenever she came into his head.... Remiss as he was, he had no lack of encouragement to complain of—for she ... put on her best silk, and her best simper, and lighted up her faded complexion into something approaching a blush whenever he came to visit her. And this was Master Sims’ up-street love. “So stood affairs at the ‘Rose’ when the day of the Maying arrived, and the double flirtation ... proved on this occasion extremely useful. Each of the ladies contributed her aid to the festival, Miss Lydia by tying up sentimental garlands for the May-house ... the widow by giving her whole bevy of boys and girls a holiday and turning them loose in the neighbourhood to collect flowers as they could. Very useful auxiliaries were these eight foragers; they scoured the country far and near—irresistible mendicants, pardonable thieves! “... By the time a cricket match [which opened proceedings] was over the world began to be gay at Whitley Wood. Carts and gigs and horses and carriages and people of all sorts arrived from all quarters.... Fiddlers, ballad-singers, cake, baskets—Punch—Master Frost crying cherries—a Frenchman with dancing dogs—a Bavarian woman selling brooms—half a dozen stalls with fruit and frippery—and twenty noisy games of quoits and bowls and ninepins gave to the assemblage the bustle, clatter and gaiety of a Dutch fair. Plenty of eating in the booths ... and landlord Sims bustling everywhere, assisted by the little light-footed maidens, his daughters, all smiles and curtsies, and by a pretty black-eyed young woman—name unknown—with whom, even in the midst of his hurry, he found time, as it seemed to me, for a little philandering. What would the widow and Miss Lydia have said? But they remained in happy ignorance—the one drinking tea in most decorous primness in a distant marquee, the other in full chase after the most unlucky of all her urchins. “Meanwhile the band struck up in the Mayhouse, and the dance, after a little dinner, was fairly set afloat—an honest English country dance—with ladies and gentlemen at the top and country lads and lassies at the bottom; a happy mixture of cordial kindness on the one hand and pleased respect on the other. It was droll though to see the beplumed and beflowered French hats, the silks and the furbelows sailing and rustling amidst the straw bonnets and cotton gowns of the humbler dancers.